Recently obtained birth certificates cannot override long-standing educational and service records for alteration of date of birth.

The appellant entered Government Service on 22.01.2010.

On 12.03.2012, she applied to the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) to alter her recorded Date of Birth, which was rejected on grounds of incompetency.

A subsequent application to the second respondent on 15.09.2012 was also rejected.

The appellant challenged these rejections via a writ petition (W.P. No. 178 of 2026), which was dismissed on 09.01.2026.

The appellant then filed this intra-court appeal, contending that her Date of Birth should be changed from 07.07.1965 (as recorded in school and service records) to 24.04.1966, based on a Birth Certificate issued by the Sub-Registrar, Sulur, on 03.09.2024.

1. Whether the appellant submitted sufficient and reliable evidence to justify the alteration of her Date of Birth in official service records under the relevant Service Rules.

2. Whether a Birth Certificate obtained decades after school education and initial entry into service carries sufficient evidentiary value to override consistent prior records.

The Court applied the principles governing the alteration of Date of Birth under Service Rules, which generally require applications to be made within a specified period of joining service and backed by conclusive evidence.

The Court emphasized that entries in school education records and initial service entries carry a high degree of evidentiary weight.

The Court further relied on the principle that the burden of proof lies heavily on the employee to demonstrate a "bona fide" mistake through contemporaneous official records rather than certificates obtained just prior to or during litigation.

The Court observed that throughout the appellant's school education, her Date of Birth was consistently recorded as 07.07.1965.

The appellant sought to replace this record with a new Date of Birth (24.04.1966) based solely on a Birth Certificate issued by the Sub-Registrar in 2024.

The Court noted that the certificate appeared to have been issued upon the appellant’s application in 2024, and there was no evidence that the Sub-Registrar had verified original Birth Registers or contemporaneous records from the year 1966.

Consequently, the Court found the 2024 certificate to be an unreliable basis for invoking Service Rules to alter long-standing service records, concluding that the appellant failed to meet the requisite standard of proof.

The Court affirmed the Writ Court’s order, finding no perspective or legal error in the dismissal of the original petition. The Writ Appeal was dismissed, and no costs were awarded.