High Court of Delhi: The Court while examining the writ petition filed by the petitioner seeking a direction to the respondents to change the name of the petitioner from ‘Randhir Srivastav’ to ‘Aditya Srivastav’ in all the records maintained by the respondents and to issue a fresh mark-sheet and certificate of Class-X Examination passed by the petitioner in the year 2015, the Bench comprising of G. Rohini ,CJ.,and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, J.,rejecting the writ petition held that since the change in the name of the petitioner was carried out after the declaration of the result hence his request for change of name in the school records and certificates cannot be accepted as per amended Rule 69.1(i) dated 25.06.2015 according to which a request for change in the name can be considered only where the change has been admitted by the court of law and notified in the government gazette before the declaration of the result of the candidate.
The petitioner had appeared for Class-X Board Examination conducted by the CBSE, the result was declared on 28.05.2015. Thereafter, he got his name changed from ‘Randhir Srivastava’ to ‘Aditya Srivastav’ and a public notice was issued to that effect in the newspapers in June, 2015, along with a notification in the Gazette of India dated 05.12.2015. On the basis of the same, petitioner made an application before the CBSE seeking change of his name in the in the school records/certificates. However, the respondent informed the petitioner that the request for change of his name cannot be accepted in view of Rule 69.1(i) of the Examination Bye-laws duly notified on 25.06.2015.
The Court holding the contentions of the petitioner as untenable rejected the appeal stating that the amended Bye-Law 69.1(i) cannot be made applicable to the petitioner case since the said amendment was affected on 25.06.2015 and the notice for the change of name of the petitioner was notified in the official gazette on 05.12.2015 thus no right can be stated to have been accrued to the petitioner as the crucial date is the publication of the notice in the gazette hence the contention of the petitioner that the process for correction of the name has been initiated much prior to the amended notification is also equally untenable. The bench was of the opinion that having failed to challenge the vires of the amended Rule, it was not open to the petitioner to contend that the amended Rule, which disentitled candidates to seek correction/change in the name within 10 years, is arbitrary and illegal. [Aditya Srivastava v. Central Board Of Secondary Education, 2017 SCC OnLine Del 6599, decided on January 23, 2017]
