Holding that a person cannot give one date of birth for admission to a school and another date of birth for a job, the Madras high court has set aside an order allowing a head master to alter his date of birth for the sake of service benefits.
A division bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and M Venugopal allowed the appeal filed by the state government, challenging the single judge order, which directed the Director of School Education to alter a Head Master’s date of birth from January 6, 1952 to March 23, 1954 in his service register and allow him to retire from service with all benefits.
S. Selvanathan, head master of Government HS School in Kancheepuram district, was initially appointed as junior assistant in June 1974 in Sub-Treasury, South Arcot district.
He appealed for alteration of his date of birth in the service register as March 23, 1954 instead of January 6, 1952(his actual date of birth) on the ground that his date of birth was wrongly given by his parents when admitting him to school.
He made a representation to the Director of Education seeking alteration of his date of birth and the same was rejected in July 2009. Challenging this order, Selvanathan filed a petition and a single judge allowed it.
Accepting the submission of additional government pleader Rani Selvam, the bench said, “If the date of birth of Selvanathan is taken into consideration as March 23, 1954, he is aged about three years and hence, he is not eligible for admission in the first standard. That is why, the date of birth was given at the time of admission as January 6, 1952.
Now after enjoying the recorded date of birth in the school records, to gain two years of service, he came forward with the plea of alteration of his date of birth. He cannot change his date of birth to suit his convenience.
Therefore, we are unable to appreciate the reasons adopted by the single judge in allowing his petition.”