CHENNAI: Hardly a fortnight ago, the Madras High Court held that the date of birth (DoB) of a student cannot be altered at a later stage, as the change would nullify her admission in the first standard and nullify her entire qualification.However, passing orders on a similar petition the same Justice S Vaidyanathan held on the contrary and directed the school education authorities to change the DoB.The judge was disposing of a writ petition from P Poomesh praying for a direction to the respondents to change his DoB in his SSLC and Transfer Certificate from July 5, 2001 to March 5, 1999 as per the birth certificate and Aadhaar card.
The judge said that normally, the court would not grant the relief, that is, changing the DoB from a particular date to another date immediately after admission. Only when a child completes the age of five, he/she may be entitled to admission into the school. The parents, for the purpose of admitting their child into a school, may alter the birth date, that is, by advancing it and admit the child to school.
Later, they approach the authorities and then the court to correct the birth date based on the birth certificate. If such an alteration is going to create a situation where the child could not have entered into school at the age of five, the entire school education is void/nullity.However, in the present case, the petitioner is a physically-disabled person and he is not seeking the postponement of the DoB, but advancing it as per the birth certificate. If the birth date is advanced, it certainly cannot be disadvantageous to him.In any event, advancing the DoB is not going to cause any hindrance to anyone except the petitioner/student. Hence, the DoB may be corrected, the judge said.