IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that the three-year limitation period for requesting corrections in certificates issued by the Board is mandatory and must be adhered to, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the request.

JUDGMENT :

Shree Prakash Singh, J.

1. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Shailendra Kumar Singh, learned Chief Standing Counsel and Mr. Pankaj Patel and Mr. Vivek Shukla, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsels for the State.

2. Since a legal question is involved to be adjudicated, therefore, notice to opposite party no.5 is hereby dispensed with.

3. By means of the instant petition, the petitioner has assailed the order dated 30.9.2023 passed by the opposite party no.3, i.e., Regional Secretary, Madhyamik Shiksha Parshad, Varanasi (hereinafter referred to as 'Board") whereby the claim of the petitioner with respect to correction of date of birth of the petitioner in the mark sheet-cum-certificate is rejected.

4. Brief factual matrix of the case is that on 3.9.2005, petitioner took admission in the institution, namely, Patiraji Montessori School, Badhupur, Pratappur Kamaicha and he remained over there till class Vth, whereafter school leaving certificate was issued in which date of birth of the petitioner is mentioned as 30.9.2005. After completion of class VIIIth standard, the petitioner took admission in High School at J.B.I.C., Mathura Nagar, Ramgarh, Sultanpur, and he has submitted his school leaving certificate of class VIII, wherein also, his date of birth is mentioned as 30.9.2005 and further in class IXth, at the time of pre-registration, the date of birth of the petitioner is mentioned as 30.9.2005. Further after passing of class IXth, the petitioner took admission in class Xth and also passed the examination with role number 1813634 in the year 2022 but once he received the mark sheet-cum-certificate, he found that his date of birth is wrongly mentioned as 30.5.2005, in place of 30.9.2005. Being aggrieved, he moved an application before the Regional Secretary of the Board, who passed the order on 30.9.2023, thereby rejecting the request of the petitioner for correcting date of birth in the mark-sheat -cum- certificate of class Xth.

5. Contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the petitioner from very inception of his admission, mentioned the date of birth as 30.9.2005, which is evident not only from the school leaving certificate, but, that too, from the pre-registration for class IXth. He submits that there is no fault on the part of the petitioner so as to incorrectness in the date of birth mentioned in the mark sheet-cum- certificate of High School standard and as soon this came into his knowledge, he objected the same with a request to the Secretary Board to correct it, but the same was rejected on the wrong premise that the application is made after passing of three years which is impermissible as per the Regulation 7 of the Regulations made under the UP intermediate Education Act, 1921 (hereinafter referred to as 'Regulation').

6. Regulation 7 is extracted as under:-

7. He argued that from bare reading of Regulation 7, it is evident that the same prescribes the provision regarding the correction in the entries of the certificate issued by the Board in case of any clerical mistake or omission, which has occurred on the part of the Board. So for the present matter is concerned, the submission is that here entries were rightly done in the records by the petitioner, but it is the fault on the part of the Board and, therefore, the Board is under an obligation to correct the same. He also added that while passing the impugned order dated 30.9.2023, the Board has not taken care of that so far as the incorrectness in the certificate is concerned, that was not intimated by the Board, and later on, when it came into knowledge of the petitioner, he, at once, written a letter to the Secretary Board for correction of the same.

8. Further contended that the date of issue of the certificate, is 27.6.2020 and the petitioner moved the application on 10.9.2022, that too, within the time prescribed under Regulation 7, though, subsequently, the petitioner moved an application on 5.9.2023, and the order d