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4. The contention of the petitioner is that the respondents have erroneously relied upon old Rule 26.4 of the Secondary School Code and have not correctly applied the provisions of Rule 38 of the Rules. Further, there was sufficient evidence to support the claim of the petitioner and the respondents were obliged to correct the date of birth of the petitioner in her service records. The matter was argued at the admission stage itself. Though the respondents did not file any affidavit-in-reply but it was argued that the petitioner has already put in nearly 35 years of service and the application admittedly was filed by her against the spirit of the Rules and much beyond the period of limitation. It is also contended that the petitioner had enjoyed the benefit of rendering two more years service at the very initiation of her career, even if the argument of the petitioner was to be accepted, and, therefore, no prejudice has been caused to the petitioner by passing of the impugned orders. On the basis of the record before this Court, it cannot be disputed that the petitioner had given her date of birth as 18th May, 1949 and not 16th May, 1951 at the time of her employment. The respondents have produced before us the copy of the service record of the petitioner where she herself had written the date of birth as 18th May, 1949, and has signed the said record which was also verified by the Assistant Welfare Commissioner, Mumbai Division. On the basis of this record, the petitioner was granted appointment vide letter dated 5th July, 1972, with effect from 10th July, 1972. If the petitioner was not born in 1949, in all probability, and, in fact, certainly she could not have been given appointment in the year 1972. In paragraph 8 of the writ petition the petitioner has stated that during discussions in 2004 between the family members and relatives, she came to know that she was born in 1951 and not in 1949 and one of the friends of the petitioner, who was elder to her, was still in service and was still to retire. These facts have persuaded her to correct the documents and accordingly made application to change her date of birth in the year 2005. These averments lack bona fide and cannot be given credence at the fag end of the service career. It may be appropriate for us to refer to a Division Bench decision of this Court in the case of Kakasaheb Shidu Mhaske v. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (Writ Petition No. 391 of 2007) decided on 19th April, 2007 where in somewhat similar circumstances the Court dealt with both the contentions of prejudice as well as undue delay and version put forward by the petitioner in that case being lack of bona fides and held as under: