Orissa High Court

Pruthiraj Manik vs State Of Odisha & Others .... Opp. ... on 10 November, 2025

       IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK
                          W.P.(C) NO. 31022 OF 2025

In the matter of an application under Articles 226 & 227 of the
Constitution of India.

Pruthiraj Manik                                        ....                 Petitioner

                                       -Versus-

State of Odisha & Others                               ....              Opp. Parties


                       Advocates appeared in this case:


       For Petitioner       :        M/s. K.K. Rout, K Rout, S.K. Rout, T.S.
                                     Swaraj, (Ms.) S. Sthitapranjna, S. Sahoo,
                                     P.N. Pattnaik & R. Sharma, Advocates

       For Opp. Parties :            Mr. J.K. Khandayatray,
                                     Addl. Standing Counsel
                                     [OP Nos.1 to 3, 6 & 7]

                                     Mr. S.S. Rao, Senior Advocate
                                     [OP Nos.4 & 5]

CORAM:

       THE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DIXIT KRISHNA SHRIPAD

                                 JUDGMENT

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Date of hearing & judgment : 10.11.2025

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PER DIXIT KRISHNA SHRIPAD,J.

"Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

- Thomas Sowell in "Intellectuals and Society, 2010"

Short grievance of the Petitioner is as to rejection of his request for the change

of date of birth in the school records.

2. Learned counsel for the Petitioner submits that some confusion having

cropped up because of entry of wrong date of birth in the school records, and

that the rectification of the same ought to have been permitted by the

jurisdictional OPs, especially when the birth is registered by the competent

authority in the Register of Births & Deaths, which is not disputed. He points

out that the Birth Certificate mentions both the date of birth & the date of

registration of birth. According to the Petitioner, the school authorities then,

mindlessly entered the date of registration of birth as the date of birth, when

the two are poles asunder. This is creating too many problems and therefore,

Court should come to the rescue. So contending, counsel seeks to falter the

impugned order dated 03.10.2025 at Annexure-11, whereby her client's

request for rectification of date of birth in the school records has been

negatived.

3. Learned ASC-Mr. Khandayatray appearing for OP Nos. 1 to 3, 6 & 7

and learned Senior Counsel- Mr. Rao appearing for OP Nos.4 & 5 resist the

petition heavily placing reliance on the text of Rule-39 of Regulations of

the Board of Secondary Education Orissa. They submit that the subject

Board Regulation comes in the way of granting relief to the Petitioner,

since the request for rectification was made belatedly; there are

contemporaneous school records that contain the very same date of birth

and therefore, rectifying it in one set of records would not come to the aid

of Petitioner in any way, the alleged wrong entry continuing in the other

set. They also highlight the likely consequences if claim of the Petitioner is

favoured, laying a wrong precedent that will have enormous mischief

potential. So contending, they seek dismissal of the petition.

4. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having perused the

petition papers, this Court is inclined to grant indulgence in the matter for

the following reasons:

4.1. Provisions of the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, 1969 cast a

duty inter alia on the parents & nursing homes to report births of babies to

the Registrar of Births & Deaths. Section 8 of the Act reads as under:

"8. Persons required to register births and deaths.--(1) It shall be the duty of the persons specified below to give or cause to be given, either orally or in writing, according to the best of their knowledge and belief, within such time as may be prescribed, information to the Registrar of the several particulars required to be entered in the forms prescribed by the State Government under sub-section (1) of section 16,--

(a) in respect of births and deaths in a house, whether residential or non-residential, not being any place referred to in clauses (b) to (e) the head of the house or, in case more than one household live in the house, the head of the household, the head being the person, who is so recognised by the house or the household, and if he is not present in the house at any time during the period within which the birth or death has to be reported, the nearest relative of the head present in the house, and in the absence of any such person, the oldest adult male person present therein during the said period;

(b) in respect of births and deaths in a hospital, health centre, maternity or nursing home or other like institution, the medical officer in charge or any person authorised by him in this behalf;

(c) in respect of births and deaths in a jail, the jailor in charge;

(d) in respect of births and deaths in a choultry, chattram, hostel, dharmasala, boarding-house, lodging-house, tavern, barrack, toddy shop or place of public resort, the person in charge thereof;

(e) in respect of any new-born child or dead body found deserted in a public place, the headman or other corresponding officer of the village in the case of a village and the officer in charge of the local police station elsewhere:

Provided that any person who finds such child or dead body, or in whose charge such child or dead body may be placed, shall notify such fact to the headman or officer aforesaid;

(f) in any other place, such person as may be prescribed. (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), the State Government, having regard to the conditions obtaining in a registration division, may by order require that for such period as may be specified in the order, any person specified by the State Government by designation in this behalf, shall give or cause to be given information regarding births and deaths in a house referred to in clause (a) of sub-section (1) instead of the persons specified in that clause."

Accordingly, a report having been made, birth of the Petitioner came to be

registered by the jurisdictional Registrar years ago. Petitioner has produced

the Certificate of Birth issued on 19.04.2025. The same reflects that the

Petitioner is born on 09.11.2006 and registration of his birth is effected on

15.11.2006. This document is not in dispute. The Apex Court in CIDCO

v. Vasudha Gorakhnath Mandevlekar, (2009) 7 SCC 283 held as follows:

"18. The deaths and births register maintained by the statutory authorities raises a presumption of correctness. Such entries made in the statutory registers are admissible in evidence in terms of Section 35 of the Evidence Act. It would prevail over an entry made in the school register, particularly, in absence of any proof that same was recorded at the instance of the guardian of the Respondent...."

4.2. There is force in the submission of learned counsel appearing for the

Petitioner that, may be by inadvertence, in the school records the date of

registration of birth has been reflected as the date of birth of her client. It is

not uncommon to see such mistakes occurring at the hands of parents who

secure school admission, their wards being obviously juveniles and

therefore, such juveniles would not have had any say in the matter. At

times, in the rural society, the admission of children to the schools is done

by persons other than parents also, i.e., relatives or friends who may not

have that degree of seriousness which the parents would have. Presumably,

it is for this reason, the law provides for rectification of date of birth in the

school records subject to certain conditions & limitations. Regulation 39 of

the extant Regulations reads as under:

"The date of birth once entered in the Board's records cannot be changed unless it is of the nature of clerical error or printing mistake. Application for the correction of the date of birth should be made within three years of passing the examination. No change in date of birth recorded shall be made unless the application for correction is received through the head of the institution concerned within three years of passing the examination."

The above Regulation prescribes a limitation period of three years for

applying for rectification and the reckoning point is the examination. The

word "examination" is defined under section 2(b) of the Orissa Secondary

Education Act, 1953 to mean the one conducted by the Board of Secondary

Education. The contention of Mr. Rao that going by the text of this

Regulation, petitioner's application was belated, is true. However, what one

has to see is the intent & policy content of the Rule Maker and not just

litera legis. In other words, rule of the kind should be construed with

purposive approach and not literal approach, vide Justice Aharon Barak the

'Purposive Interpretation in Law' (2005). Added, if there is a delay, there

is no prohibition in the Regulations for the authorities to condone it

keeping in view justice of the case. It is more so, when there is no

allegation of fraud or fabrication.

4.3. The above apart, the rule of limitation enacted in the subject

Regulation cannot be strictly construed, though it begins with the term "no

change in date of birth..... shall be made". After all, it is a piece of

delegated legislation intended to grant redressal to the innocent students,

who have written the Board Examination. The principal object of the

Regulation is to facilitate rectification of mistake in the date of birth

appearing in the school records and therefore, the interpretation that would

advance this object has to be placed on the text of Regulation. Even

otherwise, whatever little delay that has been brooked in applying for

rectification could have been waived or condoned, no third party interest

having been created in any sense. It is not that the rectification of date of

birth in the Service Records of an employee is being sought for. If it were

to be one such, different factors would have entered the fray of

consideration. Civilized jurisdictions graciously accommodate the claim

for rectification of mistakes in birth records consistent with the canons of

Epistemology. Section 152 of Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and such

other provisions in several statutes are enacted on that philosophy.

Therefore, when errors occur in judgments & orders, the same are

addressed by the Courts/Tribunals ex debito justitiae, i.e., as a matter of

justice.

4.4. In United Kingdom, USA & Australia provisions of law do obtain

whereunder one can apply for the correction of birth registration when the

information furnished and/or recorded by the officials is demonstrably

wrong. This mistake may be as to the date & place of birth, names of

parent(s) or the like. If application is approved after a summery inquiry, a

correction is made in the concerned register maintained by the competent

authority in the jurisdictional offices, ordinarily where the child was born.

In UK the original information will always be shown in the register. After

the correction has been effected, a note will be added to the margin of the

when the correction was made. After all, it was St. Augustine, who said in

his 'Sermones' (5th Century CE) humanum fuit errare, diabolicum est per

animositatem in errore manere literally meaning: to err is human, but to

persist in error is diabolical'.

4.5. The reasoning in the impugned order, that the subject date of birth is

reflected in other contemporaneous school records, does not stand to logic.

It is so because, once the date of birth is recorded at the entry point of

admission to educational institution, the same would be reflected in the

records of other institutions, wherein a person has studies in due course. If

the entry in the base document is shown to be incorrect, the exercise for

correction has to be undertaken, for keeping the record straight. It hardly

needs to be stated, the date of birth assumes importance in many matters,

such as professional courses, employment (appointment, seniority &

retirement), travel documents (passport, visa, etc.), election (voting, staking

candidature, etc.). It has been a settled position of law that ordinarily

wherever the issue of age of a person crops up, the entry of date of birth

made in the HSC/SSLC certificates should be acted upon.

4.6. It is very pertinent to advert to the normative process which a 3-

Judge Bench of the Apex Court in Jigya Yadav (Minor) V. Central Board

of Secondary Education, AIR 2021 SC 274 has spelt out:

"170. The first is where the incumbent wants "correction" in the certificate issued by the CBSE to be made consistent with the particulars mentioned in the school records. As we have held there is no reason for the CBSE to turn down such request or attach any precondition except reasonable period of limitation and keeping in mind the period for which the CBSE has to maintain its record under the extant regulations. While doing so, it can certainly insist for compliance of other conditions by the incumbent, such as, to file sworn affidavit making necessary declaration and to indemnify the CBSE from any claim against it by third party because of such correction. The CBSE would be justified in insisting for surrender/return of the original certificate (or duplicate original certificate, as the case may be) issued by it for replacing it with the fresh certificate to be issued after carrying out necessary corrections with caption/annotation against the changes carried out and the date of such correction. It may retain the original entries as it is.... We repeat that if the application for recording correction is based on the school records as it obtained at the time of publication of results and issue of certificate by the CBSE, it will be open to CBSE to provide for reasonable limitation period within which the application for recording correction in certificate issued by it may be entertained by it.... 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.......

171. As regards request for "change" of particulars in the certificate issued by the CBSE, it presupposes that the particulars intended to be recorded in the CBSE certificate are not consistent with the school records. Such a request could be made in two different situations. The first is on the basis of public documents like Birth Certificate, Aadhaar Card/Election Card, etc. and to incorporate change in the CBSE certificate

consistent therewith. The second possibility is when the request for change is due to the acquired name by choice at a later point of time. That change need not be backed by public documents pertaining to the candidate.

(a) Reverting to the first category, as noted earlier, there is a legal presumption in relation to the public documents as envisaged in the 1872 Act (Indian Evidence Act). Such public documents, therefore, cannot be ignored by the CBSE. Taking note of those documents, the CBSE may entertain the request for recording change in the certificate issued by it. This, however, need not be unconditional, but subject to certain reasonable conditions to be fulfilled by the applicant as may be prescribed by the CBSE, such as, of furnishing sworn affidavit containing declaration and to indemnify the CBSE and upon payment of prescribed fees in lieu of administrative expenses. The CBSE may also insist for issuing Public Notice and publication in the Official Gazette before recording the change in the fresh certificate to be issued by it upon surrender/return of the original certificate (or duplicate original certificate, as the case may be) by the applicant......

(b) However, in the latter situation where the change is to be effected on the basis of new acquired name without any supporting school record or public document, that request may be entertained upon insisting for prior permission/declaration by a Court of law in that regard and publication in the Official Gazette including surrender/return of original certificate (or duplicate original certificate, as the case may be) issued by CBSE and upon payment of prescribed fees. The fresh certificate as in other situations referred to above, retain the original entry (except in respect of change of name effected in exercise of right to be forgotten) and to insert caption/annotation indicating the date on which it has been recorded...... This is so because the CBSE is not required to adjudicate nor has the mechanism to verify the correctness of the claim of the applicant.

172. In light of the above, in exercise of our plenary jurisdiction, we direct the CBSE to process the applications for correction or change, as the case may be, in the certificate issued by it in the respective cases under consideration. Even other pending applications and future applications for such

request be processed on the same lines and in particular the conclusion and directions recorded hitherto in paragraphs 170 and 171, as may be applicable, until amendment of relevant Byelaws. Additionally, the CBSE shall take immediate steps to amend its relevant Byelaws so as to incorporate the stated mechanism for recording correction or change, as the case may be, in the certificates already issued or to be issued by it."

The above observations although have been made in a bit different context,

the school authorities have to draw wisdom from the same. What approach

these authorities should have in entertaining the request for change/

correction of entries, is indicated by the Apex Court.

In the above circumstances, petition succeeds. A Writ of Certiorari

issues quashing the impugned order dated 03.10.2025 at Annexure-11

coupled with a Writ of Mandamus to OP Nos.4 & 6 to rectify the errors in

the school records, in terms of Birth Certificate issued on 19.04.2025 at

Annexure-1, within six weeks. The OP No.6 shall take all steps to facilitate

implementation of this order at the hands of OP No.4. Petitioner to

cooperate and coordinate by producing necessary documents, as may be

sought, for accomplishing the task.