The burden of proving the age of a candidate in an election lies on the candidate, and the precedence of date of birth in the electoral roll over other documents.

Navin Sinha, J.

Heard learned counsel for the Appellant and the State Election Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Commission).

2. The present Appeal arises from order dated 05.02.2013 dismissing C.W.J.C. No. 21556 of 2012, affirming the order of the State Election Commission dated 08.11.2012 holding that the date of birth of the Appellant was 15.03.1990. She was therefore below 21 years of age on 05.03.2011 when she filed nomination for the Panchayat Elections-2011, leading to her being unseated from the post of Mukhiya after having successfully contested.

3. Learned counsel for the Appellant contended that the conclusion of the Tribunal is vitiated as based on an admission by the Appellant that her date of birth was 15.03.1990. No admission had been made by the appellant. On the contrary she had relied upon the electoral roll of the year 2011 to contend that her date of birth was 18.08.1987. The electoral roll was not in dispute. If the Commission had any doubts it should have had further inquiries made into the date of birth including assessment by a Medical Board, if necessary.

4. It was next submitted that the School Admission Register showing the date of birth as 15.03.1990 was itself a disputed document in view of the fact that interpolation had been made to read as 15.03.1995. It was lastly submitted that the order of the Commission is not in accordance with the observations in C.W.J.C. No. 1829 of 2012 that the Admission Register could not be the absolute criteria for the correct age. It had also been observed that the issue of no objections having been filed at the time of nomination would have to be the subject matter of inquiry.

5. Reliance was placed on A.I.R. 1963 Kerala 18 [Abdul Majeed (Meera Sahib) v. Bhargavan (Krishnan) Member, Legislative Assembly and others] to submit that the date of birth in the electoral roll shall take precedence over the School Admission Register. We find that the controversy there was in an entirely different context with regard to the age of the voters and not the contesting candidate. We are of the sufficient opinion that the case has no relevance to the present controversy as it was based on its own facts.

6. Reliance was next placed on A.I.R. 1965 SC 282 (Brij Mohan Singh v. Priya Brat Narain Sinha and others) with emphasis on paragraph 20 to contend that in actual life it does happen that wrong date of birth is mentioned at the time of seeking admission in the school with a view to securing advantage in public service later in life. This date therefore cannot be taken as conclusive. If this submission on behalf of the appellant is to be accepted, it reinforces that the date of birth as 15.03.1990 did not drop from the heavens but was based on materials furnished and disclosure made by none other than the grand-mother of the appellant and not by any stranger.

7. Reliance was lastly placed on (2012) 5 SCC 634 (Joshna Gouda v. Brundaban Gouda) with emphasis on paragraph-15 that the burden for proving the age of the appellant lay on the respondent. There can be no quarrel with the very broad proposition, but for the acknowledgement (even if we do not use the word "admission" vehemently opposed on behalf of the appellant) that her date of birth was in fact mentioned in the School Admission Register as 15.03.1990 based on information supplied from authenticated sources.

8. Counsel for the Commission has invited our attention to the pleadings of the appellant before the Election Tribunal, particularly at paragraph-4 which reads as follows:

"That it is stated that the illiterate grandmother of opposite party no. 4 namely Ramsakhi Devi got enrolled her grand-daughter in class VI of the school on 18.08.2007 and her date of birth was mentioned as 15.03.1990 ..........."

9. If the grandmother of the appellant was illiterate, all the more reason that machinations with regard to the date of birth for subsequent advantage in later of life would have been a far cry for her. Rustic simplicit