Ghai Niyazi, Ms. Kirti Bhardwaj, Mr. Arquam Ali and Ms. Nohmat Sethi, Advocates v. PREMA EVELYN D CRUZ AND ANR Through

Judgment

1. The present Appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent challenges the Judgment dated 25.11.20221 passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P.(C) 2663/2022 titled as “Prema Evelyn Dcruz vs. Union of India and Ors.”. 2. Briefly put, the entire dispute revolves around the date of birth of Respondent No. 1 herein in the records of the Appellant. By way of W.P.(C) 2663/2022, in which the impugned Judgment came to be passed, the following reliefs were sought by Respondent No.1: - 1 Impugned Judgment LPA 171/2023 “(A) Issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other Writ, Order or Direction directing the Respondents to correct the date of birth of the Petitioner in the passing certificate of the All India Secondary School Examination number 00289915 dated 07.06.1999 and any other document issued by the Respondents relying upon the aforesaid certificate, after recording her correct date of birth, i.e., 27.02.198 I (as recorded in the Birth Certificate issued under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969) pursuant to her application dated 17.11.2021, and to issue a fresh certificate to the Petitioner after making the aforementioned correction; (B) In the alternative and without prejudice to the above, issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other Writ, Order or Direction directing Respondent No. 2 to decide the Petitioner's application dated 17.11.2021, for change in date of birth in passing certificate of the All India Secondary School Examination number 00289915, after recording her correct date of birth i.e., 27.02.1981, in accordance with the law laid down by this Hon'ble Court and the Hon'ble Supreme Court. (C) Issue an appropriate Writ, Order or Direction declaring that the Petitioner's Birth Certificate, issued by Greater Chennai Corporation (under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969) records her correct date of birth, i.e., 27.02.1981. (D) Grant such further and other reliefs as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the nature and circumstances of the case.”

3. The said petition relied upon the birth certificate issued by Respondent No.2, namely, the Greater Chennai Corporation. The said birth certificate is not disputed by the Appellant. There is no challenge to the genuineness of the birth certificate issued and uploaded on the public website of Respondent No. 2. 4. While numerous grounds might have been taken in the appeal,

the learned counsel for the Appellant has restricted his arguments to a singular point which is in respect of the request for the correction in the date of birth in the Central Board of Secondary Education2 records being beyond the period of limitation as prescribed under Rule 2 CBSE LPA 171/2023

69.2 in the Examination Bye-laws 19953 of the CBSE, which reads as under:- “69.2 Change/Correction in Date of Birth: (i) No change in the date of birth once recorded in the Board's to correct records shall be made. However, corrections typographical and other errors to make the certificate consistent with the school records can be made provided that corrections in the school records should not have been made after the submission of application form for admission to Examination to the Board. (ii) Such correction in Date of Birth of a candidate in case of genuine clerical errors will be made under orders of the Chairman where it is established to the satisfaction of the Chairman that the list of candidates/application form of the candidate for the examination ". entry was made erroneously (iii) Request for correction in Date of Birth shall be forwarded by the head of the School alongwith attested Photostat copies of: (a) application for admission of the candidate to the School; (b) portion of the page of admission and withdrawal register where entry in date of birth has been made; and (c) the School Leaving Certificate of the previous school submitted at the time of admission. (iv) the application for correction in date of birth duly forwarded by the Head of School alongwith documents mentioned in bye laws 69.2(iii) shall be entertained by the Board only within two years of the date of declaration result of Class X examination. No correction whatsoever shall be made on application submitted after the said period of two years. This will be effective from the examination to be held in March, 1995.” (emphasis supplied)

5. Learned counsel for the Appellant further submitted that as per the Bye-laws of the CBSE, in addition to the request being beyond limitation, there is also a mandate for the CBSE to maintain its records in a particular manner which included the Weeding Out Rules, 1998, which provided for documents to be weeded out/subject to destruction after the passage of ten years, meaning thereby, that there are no 3 the Bye-laws LPA 171/2023 records maintained by the Appellant in respect of Respondent No.1 herein. 6. The learned counsel for the Appellant has strenuously relied upon the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Jigya Yadav v. CBSE 4 , and in particular the following paragraphs to bolster his contentions:- “118. To put it differently, the bye-laws of the Board have the force of law and must be regarded as such for all legal purposes. It would serve no meaningful purpose to hold these authoritative set of rules originating from an instrumentality of the State as mere contractual terms despite there being overwhelming public interest in their just application.

193.3. Indeed, it would be open to the CBSE to reject the application in the event the period for preservation of official records under the extant regulations had expired and no record of the candidate concerned is traceable or can be reconstructed. In the case of subsequent amendment of school records, that may occur due to different reasons including because of choice exercised by the candidate regarding change of name. To put it differently, request for recording of correction in the certificate issued by the CBSE to bring it in line with the school records of the incumbent need not be limited to application made prior to publication of examination results of the CBSE.”

7. Taking the support of the said paragraphs, learned counsel for the Appellant would contend that the learned Single Judge has not considered the aspect of whether the said request was made beyond the prescribed limitation period and also not considered the aspect of weeding out of documents. 8. The learned counsel for the Appellant would also seek sustenance from the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Board of Secondary Education of Assam v. Md. Sarifuz Zaman and Ors.,5 and in particular paragraph 10, which reads as under:-