New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has held a horoscope is a weak piece of material to prove age of a person and the "heavy onus lies" on the person to prove the authenticity of the horoscope he is relying upon to prove a new date of birth.
"There must be strong, cogent and reliable evidence in support of the contention that the date of birth entered in the service records or in the SSLC (secondary school leaving certificate) was wrongly entered by mistake," said the apex court bench of Justice Mukundakam Sharma and Justice Anil R. Dave in a recent judgment.
The apex court's ruling came while upholding an appeal by the Registrar General, Madras High Court challenging a high court order which had upheld the claim of District Judicial Magistrate, M Manickam regarding his age. Mr Manickam had claimed his actual date of birth to be Nov 24, 1950, whereas it was wrongly entered in his service book as March 19, 1947. Mr Manickam primarily relied on his family horoscope book to support his claim.
Mr Manickam had contended that that due to the wrong entry of his date of birth in the service records, he would retire from the service 3 years, 8 months and 5 days before his actual date of superannuation.
"We are of a firm opinion that respondent No.1 (M Manickam) has failed to discharge his onus in proving the authenticity of the aforesaid horoscope on which reliance is placed," the judgment said.
Setting aside the Madras High Court verdict, the judgment said the Supreme Court has time and again cautioned civil courts and high courts against entertaining and accepting the claim made by employees for correction of the recorded date of birth, long after entering into service.