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 service, if applicable.

2. The petitioner, who passed her SSLC examination in March 1979, entered service in MI UP School, Ponnani on 16.07.1990. Within three years of entering into service, she preferred Ext.P1 application dated 03.03.1993 for correction of the date of birth in her SSLC book. The said application was supported by a birth certificate issued based on the entries in the register of birth/death of the Panchayath. She did not then prefer an application for correction of the date of birth in her service records because, as per the provisions of the Kerala Service Rules (hereinafter referred to as the KSR) and Kerala Education Rules (hereinafter referred to as the KER) governing correction of date of birth in the service records, an employee who had passed SSLC, and had relied on the date of birth entered in the SSLC book while declaring her age at the time of entry into service, could not apply for a correction of the date of birth in her service records unless such correction was first effected in the SSLC book. Ext.P1 application of the petitioner was rejected by the Commissioner of Government examinations, the 2nd respondent herein, by an order dated 14.02.1996. The said order was a non- speaking one that merely stated that the genuineness of the request made by the petitioner could not be proved beyond doubt, and a correction of date of birth could be allowed only if the sanctioning authority was fully satisfied with the documents produced. The petitioner, therefore, preferred a statutory appeal before the Government on 02.05.1996. By an order dated 17.12.1996, the Government allowed the appeal by way of remand. The Government found that, although in the birth certificate produced by the petitioner, her name was shown as Kadeeja and not as Achumma, the petitioner had produced an identification certificate to show that Kadeeja and Achumma referred to the same person and further, that the verification officer had reported that no birth was seen registered on the date corresponding to the date of birth of the petitioner as recorded in her SSLC book. The 2nd respondent then took two years to consider the matter and, once again, rejected the application by an order dated 11.03.1998. The reasons stated for the rejection, as discernible from the appellate order of the Government, are as follows:-

"(1) As per the affidavit sworn by the applicant and her mother on 22.2.1993, her actual date of birth is 01.06.1959.

(2) There does not appear to be any peculiarity in Muslim girls being admitted to school later than at age 5.

(3) The birth register of Khadeeja showing date of birth as 25.02.62 had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt to be the birth register relating to the applicant."

3. The petitioner, therefore, preferred another appeal before the G