Delhi High Court: Petitioner seeks that the name of her deceased father, which was recorded in her Secondary School Examination (Class X) and the Senior School Certificate Examination (Class XII) marksheets issued by the CBSE as “D.N. Srivastav” be changed to “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”. C. Hari Shankar, J.*, held that a case for correction of the name of petitioner’s father to “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”, was made out. The Court opined that it had to adopt a realistic approach in such cases as “a name is an identity marker, and that the right to be identified by one’s name, and also as the daughter or son of parents whose name is correctly mentioned, is fundamental to one’s very identity as an individual”.
The Court noted that there was no document on record which reflected the name of petitioner’s father as “D.N. Srivastav”. Though St. Xavier’s High School (‘the school’) stated that, while obtaining registration to Class IX in 2013-2014, petitioner herself entered her father’s name as “D.N. Srivastav”. The Court also noted that there was no document in which petitioner had ever reflected the name of her father as “D.N. Srivastav” though it was true that “D.N. Srivastav” was shown by petitioner as her guardian in some documents. The Court further noted that CBSE entered “D.N. Srivastav” as the name of petitioner’s father as per the information conveyed to CBSE by the school.
The school submitted that it intimated CBSE that petitioner’s father name was “D.N. Srivastav” as, in the application form filled in by petitioner’s mother at the time of securing admission to Class VIII, her father’s name was entered as “Devanand Shrivastava”. However, later the school clarified that, as this name did not match with the name of petitioner’s father as entered in the school leaving certificate issued by the school, which reflected her father’s name as “Shrivastava Surendra Prasad”, the school contacted petitioner’s mother, who acknowledged the fact that petitioner’s father’s name was indeed “Surendra Prasad Shrivastava” but that, as he had expired, petitioner was entering the name of her uncle as her guardian at that point of time.
The Court opined that in any case, as “D.N. Srivastav” was clearly not the name of petitioner’s father, and thus, Class X and Class XII school leaving certificates of petitioner must be corrected.
The Court relied on Jigya Yadav v. CBSE, (2021) 7 SCC 535, wherein the Supreme Court held that “where there are public documents which support petitioner’s case, the Court may legitimately take the said public documents into account while deciding whether or not to grant relief. The fact that the public documents may not tally with the school records would be of no significant consequence; however, in such a case, CBSE may be permitted to indemnify itself by seeking an affidavit from the candidate concerned, or inserting a disclaimer in the certificate to the effect that the change in name is made at the behest of the candidate, in the light of public documents produced by him”.
The Court noted that there was no public record which reflected petitioner’s father name as “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”, however, it opined that it had to adopt a realistic approach in such cases as “a name is an identity marker, and that the right to be identified by one’s name, as also as the daughter or son of parents whose name is correctly mentioned, is fundamental to one’s very identity as an individual”. The Court opined that it had to be pragmatic in its approach because “D.N. Srivastav” was not petitioner’s father, and thus this position could not be allowed to continue.
The Court observed that the Birth Certificate of petitioner, which was one of the most important public record, and which enjoyed a presumption of correctness under Sections 74 of the Evidence Act, 1872, did reflect petitioner’s father name as “Surendar Prasad Shrivastav”, though there might be a spelling mismatch between the name as shown in the birth certificate which spelt the first name of petitioner’s father as “Surendar” instead of “Surendra” and the last name as “Shrivastav” instead of “Shrivastava”. Further, the Aadhar Card of petitioner reflected her father’s name as “Surendra Srivastav” and the domicile and ration card held by petitioner’s mother, reflected petitioner’s father name in vernacular as “सुरेन्द्र श्रीवास्तव”. Thus, it was difficult for this Court to continue to retain doubts about whether petitioner’s father name was indeed “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”.
The Court opined that when one transliterates the name from vernacular to English, the spellings might differ. For example, the name “श्रीवास्तव”, when transliterated to English, could be written as “Shrivastav” or “Shrivastava” or “Srivastav” or “Srivastava”. The Court stated that it could not be hyper technical in such matters and start rejecting the prayer for correction of name merely because of a slight difference in spelling between “Shrivastav” and “Shrivastava”, and “Surendar” and “Surendra”. The Court thus held that a case for correction of the name of petitioner’s father to “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”, was made out.
The Court allowed the writ petition and directed CBSE to forthwith issue fresh Class X and Class XII marksheets to petitioner reflecting the name of her father as “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”. As there were slight differences in the spelling of the name of her father as reflected in various public documents; the Court directed petitioner to furnish an affidavit to CBSE specifically deposing that the name of her father was “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav” and indemnifying CBSE in that regard. Further, petitioner was required to fulfil the requisite formalities and pay the requisite fees to ensure the change of name.
[Pragati Shrivastava v. CBSE, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 2688, decided on 10-4-2024]
*Judgment authored by: Justice C. Hari Shankar
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Anilendra Kant Srivastava, Advocate
For the Respondents: Ashok Kumar, Chhavi Arora, Romy Chacko, Sachin Singh Dalal, Advocates
