Supreme Court allows name change in CBSE school certificates

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to allow changes in name or date of birth in school certificates issued by it even after the publication of results.

The court took the decision while hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Central Board of Secondary Education’s Examination Byelaws of 2007 that did not look into any request for correction or change in name or date of birth of the candidate or name of parent(s).

The byelaws underwent amendments in subsequent years after which such changes were permitted only “before publication of result” and provided there was a court order or gazette notification.

A three-judge bench of the

Supreme Court found this condition as “arbitrary” and “unreasonable” and carved out two categories of requests – first requiring correction or change in name or parent(s) name or date of birth based on public documents and second, where change of name, parent(s) name or date of birth is not backed by any document and is purely based on choice of a person to be known by a different name.

The bench in its 132-page judgment observed, “An individual must be in complete control of his/her name and law must enable (him/her) to retain as well as to exercise such control freely for all times.”

“Such control would inevitably include the aspiration of an individual to be recognised by a different name for a just cause,” the bench in its judgement observed.