The main legal point established in the judgment is that delay in seeking correction of personal records and failure to comply with statutory provisions can bar a claim for alteration of date of birth.

JUDGMENT

Sanjay Gowda, J. - The appellant is the writ petitioner. The appellant filed the writ petition for quashing Official Memorandum dated 18.12.2019 (Annexure-P) and for a direction to the respondents to continue him till he attains the age of 60 years by considering his date of birth as 20.05.1965.

2. The Official Memorandum (Annexure-P) was only a memorandum by which the Mysuru City Corporation notified that the twenty of its employees would be attaining the age of superannuation in the year 2020. In the said memorandum, the name of the petitioner was found at Sl.No.28.

3. The case put forth by the appellant before the learned Single Judge was that he had studied upto SSLC and was appointed as a Mali, which was a Group-D post on a monthly wage basis, on 01.07.1988. He contended that while he was working as a daily wage employee, the time scale and other benefits were extended to all the daily wagers by a notification dated 24.11.1995 (Annexure-A to the writ petition) and pursuant to the said notification, his payscale stood revised. He stated that the said notification was issued pursuant to the judgment of the Apex Court which mandated that employees who had completed ten years of service would have to be regularized.

4. He contended that, in the said notification dated 24.11.1995, he came to know that his date of birth had been wrongly mentioned as 13.08.1960, instead of 20.05.1965 and he had submitted a representation along with Transfer Certificate on 21.07.2017 and requested for his date of birth to be corrected accordingly. He contended that pursuant to his request, the Corporation effected correction, but thereafter, without noticing the correction, they had issued an endorsement dated 29.01.2018 whereby his request was rejected on the ground that it was barred by limitation.

5. It was his case before the learned Single Judge that his request for correction was rejected on the basis of a Government Circular which had been issued in terms of the Karnataka State Services (Determination of Age) Act, 1974. He contended that the provisions of the said Act were inapplicable since he was not a Government servant and the same could not be applied to the employees of the Corporation.

6. The learned Single Judge, on consideration of the material produced before him, came to the conclusion that the petitioner had made a request for changing his date of birth from 13.08.1960 to 20.05.1965 only in the year 2019-2020 and in view of the law declared by the Apex Court in a series of decisions, the belated claim of the petitioner could not be entertained. The learned Single Judge placing reliance on the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of State of Jammu & Kashmir Vs. R.K.Zalpuri and Others, (2016) AIR SC 3006 and dismissed the writ petition on the ground of delay of laches. It is against this order that the present appeal has been filed.

7. During the course of hearing of this appeal, it was noticed that the notification dated 24.11.1995, by which time scale was extended to the appellant along with other employees and which had been produced by the appellant as Annexure A to his Writ petition, the name of the appellant was shown at Sl.No.160 and there were corrections made in the said notification in relation to the name of the appellant s father, his date of birth and his educational qualifications.

8. By the said correction, the appellant father s name which had been entered as Venkataramaiah was rounded off and in the margin, the name Venkataramanaiah was entered and in the column relating to the date of birth of the appellant, the date of birth 13.08.1960 was erased and 20.05.1965 had been entered. As regards educational qualification, in column No.5, as against no educational qualification , an entry that the appellant had passed SSLC had been made.

9. This Court recorded the statement of the learned counsel for the appellant to the effect that Annexure-A, which had been produced along with the Writ Petition, was the no