JUDGMENT

O. P. Trivedi, J. - This writ petition has been filed by Sukhdeo Prasad Misra under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and concerns service matter. The petitioner's contention is that he entered service in the then East Indian Railways as a Porter on December 6, 1930. In May, 1930 he passed the Vernacular Final Examination and the date of birth in the certificate issued on passing the said examination was recorded as July 11, 1913. Subsequently, the petitioner passed the High School Examination also and in the certificate obtained for passing the said examination also his date of birth was mentioned as stated above. At the time the petitioner joined service there were no rules in force nor was there any practice in the East Indian Railways about compulsory minimum age for recruitment. The petitioner had not made a formal application to the said Railways before being appointed to the post of a porter and there was no occasion on which he may have given out his age as 21 years. Even a person of 16 years was then eligible for appointment to the said post. At the time of commencement of petitioner's service no service book concerning him was maintained and in the year 1940 for the first time he came to know that his date of birth in his service record was incorrectly entered as 9th December, 1909; whereupon the petitioner made a representation against it to the authorities to the effect that his date of birth was incorrectly and arbitrarily entered in the service book and prayed for its correction to 11th July, 1913. It is an admitted fact that this representation was made by the petitioner to the General Manager, East Indian Railways, on 5th July 1940, vide `Annexure-A' to the counter-affidavit. Again the petitioner made a representation for correction of his date of birth in the service record to the Divisional Superintendent, Moradabad, on 16-5-1953. This representation was also rejected as appears from the letter of the Divisional Personnel Officer dated 9-6-1953 (Annexure 5 to the writ petition) on the ground that his request for altering the recorded date of birth had been earlier rejected by the Deputy General Manager, Ex-East Indian Railways, Calcutta, in 1940 and it was decided that his age should be accepted as 21 years on 9-12-1930. He seems to have represented again to the Divisional Superintendent, Moradabad on 5-8-1957 for the correction of his date of birth, which request was again turned down as appears from the letter of the Divisional Superintendent, Moradabad dated 18-10-1957 (Annexure-5 of the Writ Petition) . This letter read :

"You have already been replied through the S.M./C.H. vide this office letter of even no. dated 28-6-1957 that you have purposely `declared your age as 21 years on 9-12-1930 to obtain advantage of employment which would otherwise have been inadmissible had you declared your date of birth as 11-7-1913.

No alteration is, therefore, permissible at this stage."

2. On 9-3-1961 the petitioner filed an appeal before the General Manager, Northern Railway, Baroda House, New Delhi (Annexure 6 of the Writ Petition) against the rejection by the Divisional Superintendent, Moradabad, of his representation for correction of age by orders dated 9-6-1953, 1-10-1953 and 18-10-1957. Not having heard anything in his appeal the petitioner addressed a representation to the Chief Personnel Officer, Northern Railway, on 19th July, 1962 (Annexure 7 of the writ petition) for correction of his date of birth. Another letter dated 1-3-1963 was thereafter addressed by the petitioner to the Chief Personnel Officer, Northern Railway (Annexure 8 of the Writ Petition) enclosing therewith certain documents in support of his representation. Some original certificates which appear to have been demanded by the Senior Commercial Officer, Northern Railway, meanwhile were also sent by the petitioner through another letter addressed to the same officer on 11th January, 1963 (Annexure 9 of the writ petition) and on 25