Passport Authorities are authorized to require a Birth Certificate for rectifying a date of birth in a passport, as per applicable Office Memorandum.

JUDGMENT :

Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.

1. The petitioner contends that she was born in the year 1959 and not 1964. In the original passport granted to her and the re-issued passport, it is contended, the year of birth was erroneously depicted as 1964, whereas it should be 1959. It is submitted that the petitioner had initially produced several documents, including PAN Card, Aadhaar Card and Voters’ Identity Card, which carried the wrong date of birth. Subsequently, those documents have been rectified and the petitioner produced the corrected documents before the authorities.

2. However, the Passport Authorities are insisting upon production of the Birth Certificate of the petitioner, which the petitioner does not have. It is argued that since the Passport Authorities initially acted on other documents than the Birth Certificate, when the same documents have been rectified and were produced by the petitioner, the Passport Authorities have acted without jurisdiction in refusing to rectify the date of birth of the petitioner.

3. Learned counsel cites the judgmentsof two learned Single Judges of different High Courts. In the first, in the matter of Simran Raj @ Salma Nat vs. Union of India & Anr., rendered by the High Court at Rajasthan (Jaipur Bench), it was inter alia observed by the Court that the Passport Authorities are always within their competence to direct the parties to produce relevant documents either from the Authorities functioning under the Births and Deaths Registration Act or from the Judicial Magistrate or from the Civil Court, as the case may be. On production of corrected documents, the Passport Authorities are required immediately to carry out necessary correction in the passport.

4. Thus, it is argued that even a Judicial Magistrate has the authority to issue a document evidencing the date of birth of the petitioner. The petitioner, in the present case, has produced an affidavit/declaration affirmed before the First Class Judicial Magistrate, which ought to have been taken note of by the Passport Authorities.

5. In the other judgment, passed in Nishant Singhal vs. Union of India & Ors., the Delhi High Court observed, inter alia, that the documents, such as the Aadhaar Card, 10th and 12th class mark sheets, which are a valid proof of date of birth, have been produced by the petitioner and the Passport Authorities cannot make a roving enquiry on their own and also are not competent to decide the veracity of date of birth.

6. It was observed that every citizen has a legal right to hold a passport and the right can be taken away only in accordance with law.

7. Learned Deputy Solicitor General appearing for the respondent-authorities places reliance on a report filed in the form of an affidavit by respondent nos. 1, 2 and 4. An Office Memorandum dated September 22, 2016 has been annexed thereto from which it is evident that in case of a correction of date of birth, the applicant has to provide the Birth Certificate and further state that the date of birth recorded in the passport was based on entries mentioned in documents other than the Birth Certificate.

8. It is also denied that any application has been made by the petitioner at all for rectification of date of birth.

9. Upon a perusal of the annexures to the writ petition, it appears that Annexure-P/4 at page 19 of the writ petition is an application for re-issuance of passport and not for rectification of date of birth. In the said application, under the head “Applying for”, the petitioner has written “Reissue”, which indicates that the application was for re-issuance. In fact, admittedly, passport has been reissued and the said application has spent its force.

10. A larger question, however, which arises is whether the Passport Authorities ought to be directed by the Court, in contravention of the Office Memorandum issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, to mandatorily accept the documents which have been produced by the petitioner and not ins