The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of Rule 69.3 of the CBSE Examination Rules, which allows for the correction of date of birth supported by school record and other official documents.

JUDGMENT

Sudhir Mittal, J. - The petitioner is a student. His date of birth has been wrongly recorded in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate i.e. Class X and thus, he has filed the present writ petition.

2. The petitioner studied till Class IX in Police DAV Public School, Police Lines, Amritsar (respondent No.3). In the year 2011, he transferred to Shaheed Darshan Singh Pheruman Public School (respondent No.4).A Transfer Certificate dated 4.4.2011, was issued by respondent No.3 in which the date of birth was mentioned as 22.07.1996. The same date of birth was reflected in the Secondary School Examination Certificate, a copy of which is Annexure P6 on the record. A representation was made to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) through respondent No.4, but the same was rejected vide letter dated 13.5.2014, on the ground that the school record does not support the desired correction. Consequently, the petitioner approached this Court through CWP-20834-2014, but the same was dismissed vide order dated 7.10.2014 by observing that only genuine clerical errors can be corrected under Rule 69.2 of CBSE Examination Rules (for short the Rules). It has further been observed that if there is a mistake in the record of the school and the date of birth has been mentioned in the certificate in accordance with school record, no correction can be permitted.

3. After dismissal of the aforementioned writ petition, the petitioner filed a civil suit in the Court of Civil Judge (Junior Division) Baba Bakala. The said suit was filed in January 2015. On receipt of written statement, an application dated 12.10.2015, was filed for withdrawal thereof with liberty to file a fresh one on the same cause of action. It is mentioned in the application that proper parties had not been impleaded and that certain facts have not been mentioned in the plaint necessitating the filing of the application. I have been told that civil Court permitted the withdrawal of the suit.

4. Thereafter, the petitioner approached respondent No.3, who issued a fresh Transfer Certificate dated 30.5.2013, recording the correct date of birth as 25.7.1996. Based thereupon and the birth certificate issued by the Registrar (Births and Deaths), Passport, PAN Card, Aadhar Card etc., respondent No.4 requested the CBSE to correct the date of birth vide communication dated 21.5.2018. A similar communication dated 18.7.2018, was forwarded by respondent No.3. However, the requests have been rejected vide letter dated 25.7.2018 on the same ground as earlier i.e. the school record does not support the desired correction.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the complete record of the petitioner supports the contention of the petitioner that his date of birth is 25.7.1996. This is apparent from Birth Certificate dated 17.8.1996 (Annexure P-1), School Registration Form submitted in the academic session 2001-02 (Annexure P-3), Registration Certificate for the academic session 2010-11 issued by respondent No.3 (Annexure P-4) when the petitioner was in Class IX as well as documents like Passport and PAN Card etc. Rule 69.3 of the Rules permits correction of date of birth if the same has been wrongly recorded either due to typographical error or other error to make it consistent with the school record and also by Court orders. Thus, the date of birth of the petitioner deserves to be corrected.

6. Learned counsel for CBSE submits that according to Rule 69.3 only a clerical typographical error can be corrected and none else. The date of birth in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate has been recorded on the basis of the record of respondent No.4 and thus, it cannot be stated that there is any clerical or typographical error. Moreover, the writ petition is barred by principle of res judicata and Order 23 Rule 1 CPC. It is also barred by delay and latches as the same has been filed more than three years after the petitioner attained the age of majority. He relies upon a D