Punjab and Haryana High Court – CBSE Directed to Correct Date of Birth in Secondary School Certificate
Case Name: Ropin Hastir @ Robin Sharma v. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and others
Citation: CWP No. 20494 of 2018
Date of Judgment: 7 January 2020
Bench: Justice Sudhir Mittal
Held: The Punjab and Haryana High Court allowed the writ petition and directed the CBSE to correct the petitioner’s date of birth in his Secondary School Certificate. The Court held that Rule 69.3 of the CBSE Examination Rules permitted correction where school records supported the claim, and in this case the error originated from an incorrect transfer certificate later rectified by the school. Pleas of res judicata, estoppel, and delay were rejected in light of the supporting records and continuous pursuit of remedies by the petitioner.
Summary: The petitioner’s date of birth was wrongly recorded as 22.07.1996 in his Secondary School Certificate based on a transfer certificate issued by Police DAV Public School in 2011. His actual date of birth, as per the birth certificate and other official documents, was 25.07.1996. Earlier, his representation was rejected, and a writ petition (CWP No. 20834 of 2014) was dismissed under Rule 69.2, which then permitted only clerical corrections. A subsequent civil suit filed in 2015 was withdrawn.
In 2018, after the school issued a fresh transfer certificate with the correct date, the CBSE again refused correction. The petitioner challenged this decision.
The High Court found that multiple records, including the birth certificate, registration forms, and the corrected transfer certificate, supported the claim. The error clearly arose from the earlier transfer certificate. Thus, the case fell within Rule 69.3. The Court further held that the earlier dismissal did not operate as res judicata since key documents were not before the Court then, and withdrawal of the civil suit did not bar the writ. The judgment in Ambika Kaul v. CBSE (2015) was distinguished, as that case involved estoppel before superannuation, unlike the petitioner’s situation.
Decision: The writ petition was allowed. CBSE was directed to correct the date of birth in the petitioner’s certificate within four weeks of receiving the certified copy of the judgment.