The judgment of the High Court granting a declaration regarding the date of birth was binding on the government, and the limitation period for claiming a change in date of birth was not applicable to government servants who entered service before 19.8.1970.

Heard finally with the consent of the parties.

2. The Writ petition is filed by the Government of Tamil Nadu challenging the order passed by the State Administrative Tribunal(hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) whereby the Tribunal had directed to treat the date of birth of the employee the first respondent herein as 16.7.1945 and not as 8.6.1943 which was the noted date. It is an admitted position that the first respondent joined the Government service before 1970 i.e., on 25.7.1968. He applied for correction of date of birth claiming that his date of birth was not 8.6.1943 as was noted initially, but it was 16.7.1945. The petitioner filed that application on 27.5.1978 claiming that his birth date should be changed. That application was not entertained. The petitioner had to approach the Tribunal ultimately because the Government refused to treat his date of birth to be 16.7.1945.

3. It is an admitted position that the petitioner joined the service on 25.7.68 as Junior Assistant. He was promoted as Tahsildar in the year 1998. He also worked as Election Tahsildar and at the relevant time he was working as Tahsildar, Ulundurpet. At this stage while working as Tahsildar, he found that his date birth was wrongly entered as 8.6.1943 instead of 16.7.1945 and therefore he filed O.S.No.410/1981 for the declaration of his date of birth as 16.7.1945. The judgement was delivered on 16.7.1983 and ultimately the matter came to be disposed of by the High Court in S.A.No.2010 of 1996 wherein the High Court gave a declaration to the effect that his date of birth is 16.7.1945. To the said Second Appeal the Government of Tamil Nadu, The Director of Government Examinations, The Director of School Education and the District Revenue Officer, South Arcot were parties. They are obviously bound by the judgement. The petitioner's request for change of date of birth on the basis of this judgement was not favourably considered by the State Government and hence he filed the Original Application which Original Application stood allowed by the impugned order. Before the Tribunal also, the Government admitted the facts regarding the Second Appeal and the decision of the High Court thereof granting declaration that the respondent was born on 16.7.1945 and not on 8.6.43. On that basis, the Tribunal came to the conclusion that once the question was concluded between the parties, it is incumbent upon the Government to treat the date of birth as per the declaration granted by the High Court.

4. Before us, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner pointed out that the claim was made for the first time by the respondent in the year 1978. That is after about 10 years of his entering into the service. According to the learned counsel as per the express language of Rule-49, the limitation to claim a change in date of birth was only 5 years and therefore the Government was justified in not entertaining that claim as it was barred by time. According to the Government Pleader, the said claim should have been made within 5 years of entry into the service.

5. We are not impressed by this contention. There is a specific G.O. on record which is G.O.Ms.No.395 dated 15-12-1992 whereby an amendment was effected to Rule-49 and subsequently there is another G.O. in G.O.Ms.No.66 dated 2.2.1996 whereby further amendment was made which has the effect that such limitation is not applicable to the government servants who entered in service before 19.8.1970. Both the above G.O.No.395 dated 16.12.1992 and G.O.Ms.No.66 dated 2.2.1996 when read together, the obvious result would be that the limitation of 5 years made applicable to erstwhile Rule-49 would not be so applicable in cases of the Government Servants who have entered the services before 19.8.1970. In the wake of this rule, there will be no question of finding any fault with the order of the Tribunal. There is no question of limitation applicable in this case. Therefore the Judgement of the High Court in the Sec