Chandigarh: Looking to the significance of the date of Birth, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana’s division bench has mandated that while admitting the children proper and correct date of birth showing certificate should be necessarily taken by all of the Government, Public and Private Schools.
Besides, the said divisions bench of honourable HC comprising of Justice H. Gupta and Jusice L. Gill has also observed that an individual seeking to correct his or her date of birth after expiry of 3 years period from the date on which he or she attains majority, ‘he or she can not do so’.
It was hopefully observed by the said division bench that the Schools within the jurisdiction of the concerned High Court, are highly relying, while a child student is admitting to those schools, on the Certificate of birth registration issued by the Registrar of Births and Deaths and the Matriculation Certificates are reflecting the said date of birth as correct.
And it was made clear by the division bench that the schools, either Government, Public or Private, while granting admission to the child individual, if not following the aforesaid process, then it is directed to them that unless such Certificate of Birth registration from the Registrar of the Births and Deaths is produced, the admission to such children should not be granted. As such, as per bench, the date shown in the School records leading to the Matriculation Certificate, as to birth, would be in sync with the Birth date from the Birth and Death registrations’ records of that Registrar.
It is also ruled by the Court that, the Birth date shown in the records kept by the Registrar of Birth and Deaths, and issued Certificate thereof is presumed to be correct as per statutory presumption. However, if such Certificate reflecting one date and the date of birth shown in case of Schools admissions then the principal of estoppels would be clearly applicable.
These observations are made by the HC’s said division bench in case of correction of Birth date of one petitioner, namely, Ambika Kaul’s, out of several. The Correction in the date of Birth was sought by Petitioner- Ambika that in her Certificate of Central Board of Secondary Education- CBSE, based on the entry made by the Registrar of Births and Deaths in his Register maintained in this behalf.
There was found variance in the two dates of birth mentioned in the Certificate of CBSE and in the record of Registrar of Births and Deaths, as observed by the Court.
The Singh Judge-Bench, in the same case, earlier has declined the plea of seeking Correction by holding that no scope could be seen for changing the said date of Birth after once the same was written in the records of the School. And now, the division bench has also made more or less similar findings in relation to the matter of correction of date of birth in the school records and observed that the school records to contain the same correct date of birth which is reflecting in the birth registration certificate maintained by the Registrar of Births and Deaths registration.
As the decision was made by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, the extension of its applicability would be restricted to the territories comprising of Punjab, Haryana and also Chandigarh.
by Faim Khalilkhan Pathan.
