The birth certificate should be given primacy over other documents when recording the date of birth in a passport, and parties should not be automatically relegated to civil courts in case of conflicting documents.

JUDGMENT

Suvir Sehgal, J. - Petitioner has approached this Court seeking writ in the nature of mandamus for directing the respondents to change/correct his date of birth in passport bearing No. A-2783428 (Annexure P-3) as per his birth certificate (Annexure P-8) and matriculation certificate (Annexure P-7).

2. In brief, the petitioner applied for a passport at Passport Sewa Kendra, Ludhiana on 03.08.2017 (Annexure P-l). He received an intimation on 20.09.2017 (Annexure P-2) that a passport already stood issued in his name on 13.03.1997. The petitioner inquired from his parents and got a copy of his passport (Anexure P-3) wherein his date of birth had been wrongly recorded as 12.03.1991. The said passport had already expired on 12.03.2007. After getting this information, petitioner again contacted the passport authorities on 29.09.2017 for renewal/re-issuance of a passport with a correction in his date of birth to 21.03.1991 instead of 12.03.1991. For this purpose, he submitted his birth certificate, matriculation certificate and other documents. He submitted representation dated 12.12.2017 (Annexure P-4) and pointed out that when the previous passport had been issued he was a minor child of 6 years of age. Vide letter dated 20.12.2017, Regional Passport Office, Chandigarh (respondent No.2) informed him that his passport file had been closed due to absence of response from his side.

3. Upon notice being issued, respondent No.2 has filed an affidavit submitting that the previous passport had been issued on the basis of the information which had been supplied in the earlier application and since false information had been given, the petitioner was liable to proceeded against under Section 12 as well as Section 10(3)(b) of the Passport Act, 1967. It had further been submitted that change in date of birth after lapse of 15 years was not permissible. The respondent further placed reliance upon a Division Bench judgment of this Court in LPA No.1613 of 2014 titled as Ambika Kaul Versus Central Board of Secondary Education and others decided on 21.05.2015 as well as a judgment of the High Court of Kerala in W.P.(C) No.9073 of 2015 titled as Jayakumar versus The Regional Passport Officer, decided on 23.06.2015.

4. Counsels for the parties have been heard.

5. The Ministry of External Affairs has issued an office memorandum dated 26.11.2015 (Annexure P-6) which contains guidelines for change/correction of dates of birth in the passport. The guidelines are reproduced as under:-

" OFFICE MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT:- Guidelines with regard to change / correction of dates of birth en tries in the pa sport of an applicant already held by him/ her.

It may be mentioned that necessary provisions with regard to change/correction of dates of birth in the passports are contained in the Passport Manual, 2010 and from time to time number of circulars have been issued by the Ministry on this issue.

2. It is pertinent to mention that recently, the High Court of Kerala while hearing the WP No. 9073 of 2015 (Jaya Kumar Vs Union of India & others) has delivered a land-mark judgment on the issue of correction/change of entries regarding date/place of birth in the passport. During the course of arguments, the Court has elaborated upon the fact that the details entered in the Passport cannot be lightly interfered with, that too after many years without any sustainable cause and without any explanation as to why initially such a wrong declaration was made and why now a change is sought that too based on a document which was available with the applicant when the original declaration was made.

The High Court has further observed that the difference in dates of birth whether two years or twenty years, the power should be to correct bonafide mistake and that too within a reasonable time. Even a civil court declaration after many number of years would lead to the applicant having possibly perpetrated a fraud on many other who acted upon the authenticated declaration of sovereign st