Policy of the statute and object has to be kept in wind by the court.

A.S. VENKATACHALAMOORTHY, J.

The first respondent herein approached the Tamilnadu Administrative Tribunal by filing an application in O.A.No.2209 of 2000 under Section 19 of the Tamilnadu Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985 praying the Tribunal to issue proper direction to the petitioners herein to allow him to continue in service till he attains superannuation in accordance with his correct date of birth i.e., 20.4.1944, pending for determination before the competent Civil Court for granting declaration of his correct date of birth.

2. In the said application, the first respondent contended as follows:- He joined the Tamilnadu Government service on 23.7.1969 as a Field Surveyor and that his service record was prepared simply relying upon the S.S.L.C. book. While his correct date of birth is 20.4.1944, it has been wrongly shown as 1.4.1942. The certificate of Birth of Registration under Section 17 of the Births and Deaths Act, 1969 issued by the Vellore Municipality on 25.4.1977 would clearly show this. One Manickam, paternal uncle of the first respondent brought him up and in fact, he had wrongly given the date of birth as 1.4.1942 at the time of admitting him into the school. The first respondent and his parents were not aware of the fact of the date of birth was wrongly entered in the school records. Only for the first time the first respondent came to know about this in the year 1997 when he was taking steps to arrange his daughters marriage. Apart from this document, the first respondent also came into possession of a document written at the time of betrothal function for the marriage of his father and mother. The betrothal ceremony was conducted on 17.6.1942 and the marriage was conducted on 26.6.1942. The first respondent, as soon as he came to know of this, informed to the concerned authorities of his department and on the advice of his superiors, he approached the Civil Court to get a decree for declaration that his date of birth was 20.4.1944. The said suit was filed against the Director of School Education, Chennai. The suit was dismissed on erroneous appreciation whereupon, he filed an appeal before the City Civil Court, Chennai. Instead of waiting for the final verdict of the Civil Court on the subject, the petitioners informed the first respondent by a communication dated 13.3.2000 that his date of superannuation will be 31.3.2000. That prompted the first respondent to approach the Civil Court seeking for declaratory relief.

3. The Tribunal took the view that the birth certificate issued by the Vellore Municipality and the document evidencing the betrothal ceremony on 17.6.1942 would clearly show that the first respondent was born only on 20.4.1944. On interpretation of the Rule 49 of the Tamilnadu State and Subordinate Services Rules (hereinafter referred to as Rules), it took the view that an application for alteration of date of birth can be filed even beyond five years and that only application filed without the necessary document will be summarily rejected. Being aggrieved by the said order of the Tribunal, the Commissioner and Director of the Survey and Settlement, Chennai, and others have filed the above writ petition.

4. The question for consideration in this writ petition is, as to whether an application for alteration of date of birth can be filed beyond five years of the entry into service. For the purpose of this case, we are concerned with Rule 49, Sub clauses (b) and (c). We hereunder extract the same. "49(b) After a person has entered service, an application to alter the date of his birth as entered in the official records shall be entertained only if such an application is made within five years of such entry into service. Such an application shall be made to the authority competent to make an appointment to the post held by the applicant at the time of his application and shall be disposed of in accordance with the procedure laid down in sub-rule (a). (c) Any application received after f