Judgment 1. In this writ petition the petitioner sought for a direction to the respondent / Regional Passport Officer to act upon his representation, dated 23.12.2011 and based upon his clarification sought by the respondent in its letter, dated 20.04.2012 and also based upon the detailed reply sent by the petitioner on 25.04.2012 to issue passport within a time frame fixed by this Court in order to enable the petitioner to undertake his travel on 28.06.2012. 2. When this matter came up on 30.05.2012, notice regarding admission was granted and private notice was also permitted. Accordingly, Mr.V.Viswanath, learned Central Government Standing Counsel, appeared for the respondent / Department and also filed a counter affidavit dated 25.06.2012. The petitioner sought for time to file a reply and accordingly, filed a reply affidavit, dated 14.07.2012. 3. In the counter affidavit filed by the respondent / Regional Passport Officer, it was stated that earlier passport obtained by the petitioner showed the date of birth of the petitioner as 08.02.1955 which was declared by him in ahis pplication and he also had two other passports issued by the High Commission of India, Singapore and other previous passport with the same date of birth which was issued by the Trichirappali Office in the year 1979. Another passport was re-issued on 06.07.1999 by the Regional Passport Office at Chennai. All these passports were issued on the basis of the declaration in the passport application form. He further got another passport on 26.12.2005 from Regional Passport Office, Chennai, and all these passports were obtained as per the declaration given by the petitioner in the application form and the date of birth was noted as 08.02.1955 and hence he is now seeking for a new alteration of date of birth showing his date of birth as 31.07.1955 cannot be considered. His explanation that he came to know about the real date of birth only when he got married on 01.09.1989 in Germany also cannot be accepted. Since he has obtained four passports by consistently declaring his date of birth as 08.02.1955 and seeking for alteration after 23 years is not feasible for compliance. 4. In the reply affidavit it was contended that the question of obtaining any civil court decree will not arise as the petitioner is not in any Government Service and he has already produced a proof to show his real date of birth. 5. 4. In the reply affidavit it was contended that the question of obtaining any civil court decree will not arise as the petitioner is not in any Government Service and he has already produced a proof to show his real date of birth. 5. Under the rival contentions, it has to be seen that whether any direction can be issued to the Regional Passport Officer / the respondent herein as requested by the petitioner. In this context, it is necessary to refer to the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court reported in (2008) 149 PLR 621 (Reshma Singh v. Union of India and another). In that case, the Punjab and Haryana Court, after considering the relevant rules under the Passport Act and also after noting the powers under the General Clauses Act, found that in normal circumstances, if there are any clerical mistake, there is no impediment for the Passport Officer from correcting the mistake and, in paragraph 19 of the said judgment, it was observed as follows:- "19. Thus, taking into consideration the aforementioned judgements, the enunciation of law, as detailed herein above, we are of the considered opinion that the Passport Authority erred by relegating the petitioner to seek a declaration before a civil Court and refusing to entertain his plea for correction of his date of birth. We would like to once again emphasise that as and when an application is filed before a passport authority and there appears to be a conflict between entries in the birth certificate issued by the Registrar of Births and Deaths and the entry of birth in a school leaving certificate, the entry in the birth certificate issued by the Registrar of Births and Deaths would prevail and except where the certificate is unreliable, suspicious or appears to be procured or manipulated, parties should not be relegated to civil Courts in a mechanical manner." 6. It is also brought to the notice of this Court that in similar circumstances the Delhi High Court in Shane Basil Laluman v. Regional Passport Officer in Writ Petition (C) No.3737 of 2010, dealt with a similar case and after referring to the judgment of the Bombay High Court in Jagar Harish Shah v. Union of India, AIR 2001 Bombay 60 followed the similar guidelines. In paragraph 8 the Delhi High Court had observed as follows:- "8. In paragraph 8 the Delhi High Court had observed as follows:- "8. This Court is unable to view the concealment of the above facts concerning issuance of passports to the Petitioner on 21st December 1991 from Bengaluru and on 4th May 2000 from Kolkatta as a mere 'lapse' on the part of the Petitioner. There can be no excuse for this. Even more serious is the fact that the petitioner has consistently shown his date of birth, on each occasion when he was issued a passport, as 25th February 1970 on the basis of which he was issued three passports by different RPOs at different points in time. After holding the passports issued in Chennai in 2002 for nearly 8 years, the Petitioner claims to have suddenly realised the mistake in the date of birth. If the Petitioner's claim that he has been travelling extensively on the basis of his Chennai passport is true, then it is impossible that till 2010 he did not notice that the date of birth entered therein was erroneous." 7. In the light of the above, the petitioner has not made out any case for grant of any direction. Hence, the writ petition stands dismissed. No costs. Consequently the connected MP is closed.