No statutory restriction on the correction of birth certificates if supported by bona fide records.

1. The prayer in the writ petition is to correct Ext.P2 certificate issued by the Registrar of births and deaths, Thanneermukkom Grama Panchayat, showing the date of birth of the petitioner as 15/12/1982. The petitioner points out that the same is not correct, as is evidenced by Ext.P1 Admission Register and Ext.P3 the entry in the passport. Petitioner complains that his application was not received by the 2nd respondent, which forced him to file an application before the 1st respondent.

2. Petitioner also points out the judgment reported in Ambika Kaul v. Central Board of Secondary Education and others (2015 (3) SCT 350) and in the judgment of this Court in W.P.(C) No.9802 of 2025. This Court in the judgment referred to above found that the stand of the Registrar is that the date of birth entered in the birth certificate cannot be corrected was not to be wrong and held as follows: -

"I am of the view that, in view of the law laid down by the Division Bench in Prakash Francis Manjaly (supra), this writ petition is only to be allowed. In Prakash Francis Manjaly (supra) this Court held as follows:

"15. Main ground of rejection is that birth extract was corrected once on 14/12/2019 as per school records, and therefore, further correction in the birth extract cannot be allowed.

16. Going through the relevant statutory provisions extracted supra, we do not find any restriction in the number of corrections to be made in the Register of Births and Deaths, as the case may be, if the request is supported by bona fide records.

17. In the case on hand, the request is duly supported by the entries in the passport and Gazette notification issued by the Government of Kerala, wherein the name of the appellant is shown as " Prakash Francis Manjaly ". The request of the appellant is only to add the house name "Manjaly" along with his name. Statute provides for correction of date of birth or death respectively, subject to the conditions set forth in the provisions. We do not find that the request of the appellant falls within any one of the objectionable conditions.

18. In such a view of the matter, we are of the view that the order of rejection vide impugned letter dated 29/11/2019 requires to be interfered with. So also, the decision of the writ court, directing the appellant to approach the civil court under S.9 of the Code of Civil Procedure , for the reason that House name is already mentioned in the passport and in the Gazette Notification."

3. Exts.P1 and P3 also show that the date of birth of the petitioner as 10/10/1982, which was erroneously shown in Ext.P2 as 15/12/1982.

4. Under the above circumstances, there will be a direction to the petitioner to make a fresh application before the 2nd respondent, producing a copy of this judgment within two weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. The 2nd respondent receiving the same, will make the correction in view of the observations made above and issue a corrected date of birth certificate within two weeks thereafter.