State Of Haryana vs Satish Kumar Mittal & Anr

The short facts leading to this appeal are as follows:

3. Respondent No.1 joined the office of the Director of Prosecution, Haryana, as an Assistant District Attorney on 2.4.1992. At that time, he got the date of his birth recorded in the service book on the basis of the Matriculation Certificate in which the date was mentioned as 25.3.1962. It is the case of the first respondent that there was a family function in June 2001 where his relatives gathered, and wherein during the discussion he came to know that his date of birth was actually 25.11.1962, and that the one recorded in the matriculation certificate was erroneous.

4. The first respondent made a representation on 2.7.2001 for correction of the date of birth, which was rejected by the communication dated 24.9.2002 from the Superintendent of Jails and the Judicial and Financial Commissioner (who is also the Principal Secretary to the Administration of Judicial Department) addressed to the Director of Prosecution, State of Haryana. The representation was rejected on the basis of Finance Department's Notification dated 13.8.2001, which laid 3 down that no application for correction in date of birth, submitted after two years from entry into service, can be entertained.

7. The appellant filed an appeal against this judgment and order to the Court of the Additional District Judge, Karnal being Civil Appeal No.66/2007 which came to be dismissed and so also the Regular Second 4 Appeal No.3013/2007, which was filed against that order. The Learned Single Judge dismissed the second appeal by a short order in view of the concurrence of views of the courts below.

8. Being aggrieved by all these orders, the present appeal by Special Leave has been filed. It is submitted on behalf of the appellant that the first respondent joined as the Assistant District Attorney on 2.4.1992 and the date of birth given by him on the basis of the matriculation certificate was recorded in his service book. Nine years later, he has sought to correct the date of birth, allegedly on the basis of the discussion at a family function and by pointing out the extracts of births of his brothers and sisters (though in none of them, there is any name of the child). Even after his representation was turned down on 24.9.2002 on the basis of the Government Notification dated 13.8.2001, he took more than three years to serve the notice under Section 80 of the CPC, which was served on 10.11.2005 and the suit was filed almost one year thereafter on 16.10.2006. The appellant submitted that the action on part of the first respondent was belated. It suffers from latches and the suit was also barred by limitation. The Respondent No.1 on the other hand, defended the impugned judgments as correctly rendered.

14. As recorded above, it has been held time and again that the application for correction of date of birth is also to be looked into from the point of view of the concerned department and the employees engaged therein. The other employees have expectations of promotion based on seniority and suddenly if such change is permitted; it causes prejudice and disturbance in the working of the department. It is, therefore, quite correct for the State to insist that such application must be made within the time provided in the rules, say, two years, as in the present case.

18. In the circumstances, we allow this appeal and set aside the orders passed by the High Court as well as by the courts below. The suit filed by the first respondent will stand dismissed.