Contrary to all speculations, the Supreme Court has not listed the petition of Army Chief V.K. Singh on date of birth row on Friday with a PIL on the issue while he has supplied to the top court almost entire record related to the matter along with his writ petition filed earlier this week.
However, a public interest litigation moved earlier by Rohtak-based ex-servicemen’s body, Grenadiers Association, is listed for preliminary hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia on Friday after almost a month of its last brief hearing on December 17 when Justice T.S. Thakur of a division bench, headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan had recused form the case.
General Singh had annexed with his petition the copies of a plethora of documents on his DoB in support of his case that he was born on May 10, 1951 and not as May 10, 1950, which he filled “inadvertently” in the UPSC form while applying for NDA exam in 1996 as a 14-year-old boy. He has submitted that the date of May 10, 1950 was recorded wrongly as Rajasthan school board had not by then supplied him a matriculation certificate.
The documents showed that after the correction in the DoB was made with the UPSC itself soon after it had declared the results of NDA on June 10, 1966 by his father after supplying the commission provisional certificate obtained form the board, in which his DoB was recorded as May 10, 1951.
Gen. Singh pointed out that his candidature would have not been recommended by the UPSC to NDA without making the necessary correction. Besides, he has supplied to the top court medical examination report and the police verification report he was required to supply to UPSC after selection to NDA and both contained his DoB as May 10, 1951.
The petition said that Gen. Singh after joining NDA on May 13, 1966 and filled requisite particulars there in his own handwriting with correct DoB of May 10, 1951. “A copy of the particulars filled in the NDA and autobiography (a candidate required to writ about himself on joining NDA) are annexed herewith,” the petition said.
It further pointed out that when he joined Indian Military Academy (IMA) in 1969 he found that his “dossier” maintained by the academy was prepared on the basis of his initial UPSC form in which his wrong DoB was recorded and he had got it corrected promptly and the petition again referred to requisite annexure supplied in this regard.
“The said dossier is prepared by the IMA on the basis of the UPSC application form and accordingly the cover of the folder mentions the name, date of birth etc. of the candidate,” Gen. Singh said.