The judgment emphasizes the importance of timely and consistent adherence to procedures for correcting personal records, and highlights the principle that individuals should not benefit from their own misrepresentations.

B.J. Shethna, J.-The appellant-petitioner has challenged, in this appeal, the Judgment and order dated 10.2005 passed by Miss R.M. Doshit, J. dismissing his Special Civil Application No. 3573 of 2005 on two grounds that (1) when he applied for correcting his birth-date in his service record, he had already crossed the age of 50 years, and, therefore, his application could not be considered by the respondent- Board and (2) when he applied for appointment as per his other birth-date, he was minor i.e., below 18 years.

2. Learned Counsel Shri Mishra for the appellant vehemently submitted that the learned Single Judge was wrong in dismissing his writ petition on the ground that in 1999, the petitioner had already crossed the age of 50 years, therefore, his application for correction of birth-date in the service record could not be accepted. He submitted that as per the original service record of the appellant, his birth-date was recorded as 20.05.1945 in the service record and for the first time, he submitted his application on 06.03.1992 for correcting his age. At that time, he was 47 plus. If this was the only ground for rejection of the writ petition by the learned Single Judge, then we would have considered the case of the appellant-petitioner. However, as stated earlier, one more ground for dismissal assigned by the learned Single Judge was that as per his another birth-date i.e.110.1948, which he claimed to be the correct one as per the School Leaving Certificate, he was below 18 years of age for the post of Helper in 1966. No minor can be appointed in any Government post of semi-Government body who has not completed the age of 18 years. Therefore, there is no question of interference with the order passed by the learned Single Judge. However, learned Counsel Shri Mishra for the appellant vehemently submitted that the appellant may not be 18 years old when he applied on 010.1966 but when he was appointed on 11.02.1967, he had already completed the age of 18 years as per his correct birth-date i.e., 110.1948. There is no force in this submission. If the appellant had mentioned 110.1948 as his birth-date in his application form dated 010.1966, then straightaway, his application would have been rejected as he was minor at that time and he would not have been called for the interview and selected. It appears that for getting employment, he has shown his birth-date as 20.05.1945 and having obtained the job, at the time of retirement, he applied for correcting his birth-date on the duplicate School Leaving Certificate. When his application was rejected by the respondent - Board, then he approached this Court just few months before his retirement from services i.e., in March, 2005 by way of writ petition, when he was about to retire in October, 2005.

3. Before parting, we may also state that as per the case of the appellant himself , for the first time he made the representation to the respondent-Board for correcting his birth-date on 06.03.1992 (Annexure ‘A’ to the main writ petition). When he was informed in 1999 that his application for correcting the birth-date cannot be accepted, then again he made a representation dated 212.1999 to the respondent-Board (Annexure ‘B’). On 11.08.2001, he had made another representation for correcting his birth-date (Annexure-’E’). By a letter dated 05.07.2002 the appellant was once again informed that his case cannot be considered in view of the revised Rule No. 18 (Annexure-’D’). Even thereafter, he did not do anything and at the verge of his retirement in 2005, once again he submitted another application dated 11.02. 2005 for correcting his birth-date which was rejected on 21.02.2005 (Annexure-’G’) wherein it is stated that he had even accepted 90% C.P.F. final settlement before one year of his retirement from the Board and that he himself has signed the Service Book and stated in it that his birth-date was 20.05.1945.

4. From the above, it is clear that at the time of getting job, h