New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Friday hear a plea from Army Chief General VK Singh to maintain his birth date as May 10, 1951, instead of 1950, and against the orders of the defence ministry rejection of his statutory complaint in this regard.

The government is expected to file a reply in the Supreme Court on Friday after being pulled by the apex court last week over General Singh's date of birth confusion.

General Singh had on Wednesday filed more documents in the apex court in support of his plea, which had been based on his school leaving certificate, ahead of the hearing when the bench would decide if it would admit the plea.

Last week, General Singh's petition was adjourned by the Supreme Court till Friday, giving the General and the Central Government more time to resolve the controversy.

The apex court criticised the government's handling of the controversy while directing the Attorney General of India to take instructions from the government on the December 30, 2011 order which fixed General Singh's date of birth as May 10, 1950. The court pointed out that there was no independent evaluation of General Singh's complaint.

The apex court said that the December 30 order relied on Attorney General Vahanvati's opinion given to the government and hence was not correct.

The Army Chief approached the apex court against the defence ministry's December 30 order rejecting his statutory complaint against the government fixing his year of birth as 1950, going by which he would have to retire May 31 2012.

A bench of Justice RM Lodha and Justice HL Gokhale, hearing the petition, observed that it found an 'administrative defect' in the government's decision-making process that fixed General Singh's age. It questioned how could the same legal officer be asked for advice twice over on the same issue, and asked the defence ministry to withdraw the December 30 order or it would be forced to quash it.

The court will take a call on this too after hearing the government's side on what it intends to do on the December 30 rejection of the Army Chief's statutory complaint.

The discrepancy in the highly decorated soldier's year of birth stems from two sets of records - one with the army adjutant general's branch indicating it as 1951 and the military secretary's branch that showed it as 1950.

The basis of military secretary's records is the Union Public Service Commission application filed by General Singh, which mentioned that he was born on May 10, 1950.

But General Singh has maintained that he submitted his school certificate to the UPSC on time for correction of his date of birth in official records even before he was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1970.

Interestingly, all other records such as passport, army identity card, and such documents indicate his year of birth as 1951, which is also the year that the adjutant general, the army's official record keeper, maintains in his service records.

The age row first cropped up in 2006 when Singh was being considered for promotion as a corps commander.

The then military secretary sought a clarification from Singh on his age, but was later persuaded, reportedly at the insistence of then Army Chief General JJ Singh, to accept 1950 as his birth year.