A.K. JAYASANKARAN NAMBIAR, J.

1. The issue regarding permissibility of correction of date of birth in one's service records is one that has been considered by this Court and the Supreme Court on many occasions. Although it is now well settled that in any service, an employee ought not, without valid justification, to be permitted to correct the date of birth in his service records at the fag end of his service in the establishment, the case law on the point covers a myriad of factual situations that it cannot be stated as a general proposition that such a correction in the service records can never be done. The facts in the instant writ petition require me to wade through a maze of case law to see whether the petitioner can be permitted to get a correction of date of birth effected in her service records on the verge of her retirement. As a matter of fact, the petitioner retired from service during the pendency of the writ petition although her retirement was made subject to the result of the writ petition and on condition that, if she were to succeed in the writ petition, she would be entitled to all the benefits flowing from the judgment, including re-instatement in servi