Section 18
Mode of enlistment and attestation
(1)
A person offering to enlist in the regular forces shall be given a notice in the prescribed form setting out the questions to be answered on attestation and stating the general conditions of the engagement to be entered into by him; and a Magistrate or recruiting officer shall not enlist any person in the regular forces unless satisfied that such person has been given such a notice, understands it and wishes to be enlisted.
(2)
The procedure for enlisting a person in the regular forces shall be that set out in the First Schedule to this Act.
(3)
A recruiting officer shall not enlist any person under the age of seventeen and a half years without the written consent of his parents or of his guardian.
(4)
Where the recruiting officer is satisfied, by the production of a certified copy of an entry in the register of births or by any other evidence appearing to him to be sufficient, that a person offering to
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enlist has or has not attained the age of eighteen years, that person shall be deemed for the purposes of this Act to have attained or, as the case may be, not to have attained that age.
(5)
The date at which a person signs the declaration and takes the oath prescribed in an attestation paper shall be deemed to be the date of attestation of such person.
(6)
A Magistrate or a recruiting officer may at any time, if satisfied that an error in the attestation paper of a person which is not so material as to render it just that the person should be discharged, amend the error in the attestation paper, and the paper as amended shall thereupon be deemed valid as if the matter of the amendment had formed part of the original matter of such paper.
(7)
Where there are duplicate attestation papers signed and attested, this section shall apply both to such duplicates, and in the event of any amendment of an attestation paper the amendments shall be made in both the duplicate attestation papers.