Research › Search › Judgment

Gauhati High Court · body

2014 DIGILAW 941 (GAU)

Akhil Kumar Dutta v. State of Assam & Ors.

2014-10-27

HRISHIKESH ROY

body2014
1. The petitioner is serving with the United Bank of India and has re-approached the Court for a direction on the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (in short SEBA) for correction of his age in the age certificate issued by SEBA. Earlier the Secretary, SEBA on 21.7.1980 (Annexure-C) informed the petitioner that his age in the HSLC certificate can't be corrected as it is time barred under the SEBA's circular on 29.9.1975 (Annexure-D). Through this circular, 3 years time limit is specified for age correction from the date of examination and in the present case, the petitioner passed his matriculation examination on 1.3.1971. 2. Earlier the WP(C) No.6183/2002 filed by the petitioner was rejected on 4.10.2002 (Annexure-F) but he was permitted to apply to SEBA for appropriate relief. But his prayer for correction was re-rejected on 27.2.2003 (Annexure-G) by referring to the SEBA's earlier order dated 21.7.1980 (Annexure-C). A 2nd Writ Petition i.e. WP(C) No.4378/2003 was then filed but this was dismissed on 13.6.2003 (Annexure-H). 3. Thereafter the petitioner approached the Civil Court by filing the T.S. No.6/2004 but the suit was dismissed through the judgment dated 19.6.2005 (Annexure-I). The resultant T.A. No.21/2004 was dismissed by the 1st Appellate Court on 13.6.2005 (Annexure-J) and the petitioner's challenge to the High Court through the RSA No.240/2005 was rejected on 2.6.2006 (Annexure-K). While dismissing the 2nd Appeal, the Court observed that the appellant passed the HSLC examination in 1971 and he made the complaint of wrong age in his HSLC certificate only in 1980. The matter was then taken to the Supreme Court through the SLP (Civil) No.10979/2007 but the Apex Court declined to entertain the SLP through their dismissal order dated 11.5.2007. 4. But after all his efforts to secure the relief proved futile, the petitioner has re-approached the Court for the 4th occasion, where in substance, the same relief of age correction is sought by him. 5. Mr. C Goswami, learned counsel refers to the Assam Secondary Education Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the 1961 Act') to project that notifications/regulations of SEBA are required to be notified in Gazette and in the instant case, the petitioner learnt through the reply to his RTI Application furnished on 25.7.2012 (Annexure-N) that the Board is unaware of whether the concerned notification/regulation was published in the Gazette. 6. 6. However what is relevant here is that the petitioner is repeatedly approaching the Court on substantially the same cause of action and since the prayer was not accepted by multiple forums including the Writ Court/Civil Courts uptill the highest Court level, I am of the opinion that same relief can't be permitted to be claimed by the petitioner for the same cause of action only by pleading new ground. This is more so, since the pleaded ground in the present case was available to be pleaded to the petitioner in the earlier litigations as well and for reasons best known to him, this ground was never pleaded in the earlier proceeding. 7. For the above reasons, I am disinclined to exercise my discretionary power for the same cause of action and accordingly the case is dismissed.