CBSE Students are Entitled to Change Names in Marksheets; Madras High Court
In a recent judgement given by the Madras High Court, CBSE students have been given the provision to change names in the mark documents that are issued by the Council itself.
Students who apply for changing names in the records maintained by the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) either through recording it in the government gazette or issuing newspaper advertisements cannot be refused by CBSE, says Madras High Court.
The Madras High Court looked into this matter to pass this order while allowing a writ petition that was filed by a CBSE student Raana Cariappa Kalianda. The petition was represented by Kalianda Chengappa Poovaiah, Raana’s father. The petition was filed challenging a correspondence which he received from CBSE. He received the communication on 10th May 2019 in which, the council had refused to make changes to his old name from the class X mark sheet. The CBSE denied Raana’s request on the ground of a government gazette notification which was issued on 19th December 2018. The gazette stated that as per his 10th class mark sheet assigned before the date of the notification, Raana Cariappa Kalianda will now be called by this name only and it could not be changed to Kalianda Ved Cariappa.
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According to Justice G. Jayachandran, the refusal to incorporate change of names in student’s documents or mark sheets is potential to draw confusion to identify the individuals. If one set of documents has one name whereas another set of documents are carrying some other name, this could cause discrepancy. The judge said that this leads to confusion in one’s identity and could be misleading. He further added that if a student opts to change her/his name in the documents issued by the CBSE, the further procession will be done to make the change uniform in all the documents.
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In December 2016, a similar appeal was made by a minor student who was seeking to change the name in his school records issued by the CBSE. But, the plea was turned down by the Delhi High Court in January 2017. CBSE claimed that the changing of names would not have any retrospective effect and only prospective ones. The argument got rejected as it goes against the law that allows a person to change her/his name if the person follows due procedures of law. The judgement passed will be very beneficial for the students whose requests to change names are long due or have been rejected.
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