The date of birth entered in the Service Book cannot be corrected at a belated stage, and acquiescence disentitles a person for relief claimed.

( 1 ) THIS writ petition has been filed against the judgment and order dated 6th January, 2003, passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad Bench in O. A. No. 1893 of 1994 rejecting petitioners application for correcting the date of birth.

( 2 ) FACTS and circumstances giving rise to this case are that petitioner joined the service of the respondents as Tailor d on 20. 6. 1963 and his date of birth was recorded in the Service Book as 17. 5. 1934. Subsequently, he filed an application in 1982 to correct his date of birth as 17. 2. 1943 which was not accepted. Thus, he filed O. A. No. 729 of 1989 before the Central Administrative tribunal which was disposed of by the Tribunal vide judgment and order dated 15. 2. 1993 directing the respondents to hold an enquiry, giving opportunity to the petitioner to lead evidence and to examine the issue afresh. An enquiry was held and the application of the petitioner was rejected vide order dated 4. 3. 1994. Petitioner again challenged the said order before the learned tribunal filing O. A. No. 1893 of 1994 which has been rejected vide impugned judgment and order dated 6. 1. 2003. Hence, this petition.

( 3 ) SHRI K. C. Saxena, learned Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that petitioner had joined the service on 20. 6. 1963 and at the time of entrance in service his date of birth had been recorded as 17. 5. 1934. Subsequently, he passed by Matriculation in 1965 and in the Certificate of matriculation his date of birth has been recorded as 17. 2. 1943 and being an admissible document in evidence his date of birth should have been corrected by the respondents as the said Certificate is admissible Under Section 35 of the Evidence Act, and being prepared in performance of the official duty by the Educational Authorities, the presumption of its correctness is always there as provided Under Section 114, Illustration (e) of the Evidence Act. In the earlier judgment, the tribunal has accepted that the date of birth recorded in the Service Book was wrong in view of the documentary evidence, i. e. , High School Certificate, and therefore, by virtue of application of the doctrine of res-judicata the respondents were not permitted to hold that petitioners date of birth had rightly been recorded in his Service Book. The judgment of the learned Tribunal is liable to set-aside.

( 4 ) WE have considered the submissions made by Sri Saxena and perused the record.

( 5 ) SUBSEQUENT to joining the Service in 1963, petitioner passed the High School Examination in 1965 wherein his date of birth has been recorded as 17. 2. 1943. This is the document which came into existence subsequent to the entrance in service. While getting the date of birth recorded in the said Certificate respondents had not be involved. The Honble Apex Court considered this issue in an identical case in Union of India v. Kantilal Hematram Pandya, AIR 1995 SC 1349 and held that Court may not place any reliance on a document or Certificate of date of birth which had been brought into existence for the benefit of the pending proceedings as the correctness and genuineness of such a certificate is not free from doubt.

( 6 ) SIMILARLY, Rajasthan High Court in R. S. Mehrotra v. Central Government Industrial Tribunal, 1991 (63) FLR 76, has held that the documents obtained subsequent to the date of joining the service cannot be relied upon for the purpose of correcting the date of birth as it might be very easy for the employee to mention another date in the papers while preparing the other documents, which came into existence subsequently and the Industrial Tribunal should not have accepted the claim of the workman placing reliance on such documents.

( 7 ) IN Maharashtra State Electricity Board v. Sakharam Sitaram Shinde, 1996 (72) FLR 562, the bombay High Court has taken a similar view observing that the possibilities of fabricating the documents just to support the bogus claim of an employee cannot be ruled out in