REKHA PALLI, J.

1. The petitioner has filed the present writ petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India, impugning the order dated 10.07.2018, passed by the Principal Bench, Central Administrative Tribunal, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the "Tribunal"), dismissing O.A. No. 1358/2018 filed by him challenging the respondents' order dated 28.03.2018, by which his candidature for the Civil Services Examination 2017 (in short “CSE, 2017”) was cancelled.

2. The facts relevant for the adjudication of the present petition are that the petitioner (applicant before the Tribunal), had appeared in the Civil Services Examination 2016 (in short "CSE 2016") and had qualified in both, the preliminary examination as also the main examination. Thereafter, when the petitioner appeared for his interview on 02.05.2017, while verifying his documents, the respondents noticed that that his date of birth had been wrongly recorded as 31.03.1991 in the applications submitted by him for both, the preliminary examination and the main examination, whereas his date of birth as recorded in his matriculation certificate was 30.03.1991. Upon detecting the said error in his date of birth, the petitioner was allowed to provisionally appear in the interview and was directed to submit an affidavit explaining the circumstances in which the mistake in his date of birth came to be recorded in his application forms. Accordingly, the petitioner submitted an affidavit alongwith an application on 16.05.2017. However, since the petitioner did not qualify his interview round, no further proceedings took place with regard to the change of his date of birth in his application forms for CSE 2016.

3. It emerges from the records that before the stage of appearing in the interview for the CSE 2016 had arrived on 02.05.2017, by the time the mistake in the petitioner’s date of birth was detected by respondents, he had already applied for participating in the CSE 2017 pursuant to an advertisement dated 22.02.2017, issued by the respondent in this regard. For this purpose, the petitioner had submitted an application dated 12.03.2017, for sitting in the preliminary examination, in which once again, he mentioned his date of birth as 31.03.1991, instead of 30.03.1991. After successfully clearing the preliminary examination for the CSE 2017, the petitioner was required to submit the application form for the main examination on 31.08.2017. Once again, the petitioner filled up his date of birth as 31.03.1991, in his application form for the main examination.

4. It is the petitioner's case that once having filled up his date of birth as 31.03.1991 in the application form for the preliminary examination, he had no option but to fill up the same date in the application form for the main examination as the respondent’s system would not have accepted the latter form with any different date. He further claims that even otherwise, there was no prescribed modality available for change of date of birth in the application forms till the interview stage, at which point, the petitioner could effect the change in his date of birth by submitting an affidavit, as was done by him for the CSE 2016.

5. The result of the main examination for CSE 2017 was declared by respondent no.1/UPSC on 10.01.2018, whereafter vide letter dated 19.01.2018, the petitioner was called upon to appear for his interview, scheduled on 09.04.2018. At that stage, the concerned Under Secretary of the respondent no.1/UPSC issued a letter dated 23.02.2018 to the petitioner requiring him to explain the difference in his date of birth as mentioned in the application forms, vis-a-vis his matriculation certificate. On the very same day, the petitioner sent a reply stating that he had acted bona fidely and that he would get the error in his date of birth rectified at the time of his interview, by furnishing an affidavit, as he had been required to do for the CSE 2016.

6. The aforesaid explanation offered by th