Govt employee can't change birth date at end of career: Madras HC

Chennai: The Madras High Court has held that a government servant cannot claim as a matter of right to change his date of birth at the fag end of his career.

“Such a prayer at the fag end of a person’s career is per se not to be entertained, since it may affect the promotions of others, who are yearning for years below him and it would cause undoubtedly an irreparable injury and hardship because of the reason that by virtue of the correction of date of birth, some person may continue in office, for some years within which time many other employees, who are below him in seniority waiting for their promotion, may lose their chance for promotion forever,” said a division bench comprising Justices M.Venugopal and S. Baskaran.

The bench dismissed as not maintainable, the petition filed by Jeyaretnakumar, which sought to review an order of a division bench passed earlier.

Jeyaretnakumar was recruited as Assistant Public Prosecutor by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, pursuant to a March 1995 notification. After joining, he submitted a representation to the authorities in 2003 to alter his date of birth from June 1, 1960 to February 9, 1961. However, his request was rejected.
Aggrieved he approached the Madras High Court and a single judge dismissed his petition. He preferred an appeal, a division bench also dismissed the same with an observation that only on the basis of date of birth as June 1, 1960, he entered the service and that he would not have been eligible for appointment to the post.

Aggrieved, after a gap of nine years and at the fag end of his service, he filed this review petition. Writing the judgment for the Bench, Justice Venugopal said “if an individual employee seeks an alteration of his date of birth either in the near about time of his superannuation or on the eve of superannuation, then a court of law, must be doubly careful and caution in accepting the request taking note of the fact that the attitude/ tendency among employees/ government servants to raise such a plea comes only at the fag end of their career, therefore, such a plea of alteration of his date of birth at the 11th hour was not to be entertained because of the possible wide ranging ramifications and repercussions”.