Application for Correction of Date of Birth Beyond Prescribed Limitation Period under CBSE Bye-Laws is Legally Impermissible

The Appellant sought a writ of mandamus directing the CBSE to correct his Date of Birth (DOB) from 14.09.2000 to 14.09.1999 in his Class 10th certificate issued on 28.05.2016

The Appellant relied on a birth certificate issued in 2023 showing the 1999 date, whereas an earlier registration from 2002 recorded the 2000 date

The Appellant claimed he discovered the discrepancy while applying for a passport in 2023

The learned Single Judge dismissed the writ petition on 16.04.2024, holding that the request was barred by the one-year limitation period stipulated in the CBSE Examination Bye-laws

The Appellant challenged this dismissal via the present intra-court appeal

Whether a court can direct the CBSE to correct a Date of Birth in a certificate eight years after its issuance, bypassing the limitation period prescribed in the CBSE Bye-laws

Whether the existence of two contradictory birth certificates issued by a statutory authority entitles a candidate to a summary correction of records under Article 226

The court applied the principle established in Jigya Yadav v. CBSE Ors. (2021), which mandates that the Bye-laws in force on the date of the certificate's issuance govern correction requests

Under Clause 69.2(iv) of the CBSE Notification dated 25.06.2015, applications for DOB correction must be forwarded by the Head of the School within one year of the declaration of results

Sections 15 (correction of entries) and 25A (appeals) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, and Rule 11 of the Delhi Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999, provide the statutory mechanism for resolving errors in birth registers

The Court observed that the Appellant failed to approach the school or CBSE within the prescribed one-year limit, rendering the claim barred by time

It rejected the argument that Article 226 could be used to bypass statutory limitations, noting that the law does not permit doing indirectly what cannot be done directly

The Court found the Appellant’s documents unreliable as they contained contradictory information regarding both the DOB and the place of birth (Police Quarters vs. Jaipur Golden Hospital)

The Court distinguished the precedents cited by the Appellant, noting that in those cases, the facts were undisputed or based on consistent public records, which was not the case here

The Court reasoned that since the dispute involved factual contradictions in statutory registers, the appropriate remedy lay in the machinery provided under the Act of 1969 or a civil suit for declaration

It held that a direction to CBSE for DOB correction cannot be issued eight years post-certification, especially when the underlying evidence is contradictory

The Court granted the Appellant liberty to seek correction of the birth register through the Registrar under Section 15 of the Act, 1969, or to file a civil suit for a declaration of his correct Date of Birth