Right to be identified by one’s name fundamental to individual’s identity: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court observed that the Supreme Court had said that where public documents support a petitioner's case, a court may legitimately consider them while deciding whether or not to grant relief. The Delhi High Court has recently observed that the right to be identified by one’s name is fundamental to their identity as an individual. The high court made the observations while dealing with a plea moved by Pragati Shrivastav seeking that her father’s name, recorded in her Secondary School Examination (Class 10) and the Senior School Certificate Examination (Class 12) marksheets issued by the CBSE as “D.N. Srivastav,” be changed to “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav.” A single-judge bench of Justice C Hari Shankar, in its April 10 order, while referring to the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in Jigya Yadav v. CBSE observed, “However, the Court has to adopt a realistic approach in such cases, keeping in mind the pre-eminent consideration, repeatedly emphasized in Jigya Yadav, that a name is an identity marker, and that the right to be identified by one’s name, as also as the daughter or son of parents whose name is correctly mentioned, is fundamental to one’s very identity as an individual. It partakes, therefore, of a primordial necessity, and the Court has, when petitioned in that regard, to ensure that the request, if genuine, is acceded to.” The court observed that the apex court in the Jigya Yadav case had said that where public documents support a petitioner’s case, a court may legitimately consider them while deciding whether or not to grant relief. “The fact that the public documents may not tally with the school records would be of no significant consequence; however, in such a case, the CBSE may be permitted to indemnify itself by seeking an affidavit from the candidate concerned, or inserting a disclaimer in the certificate to the effect that the change in name has been made at the behest of the candidate, in the light of public documents produced by him,” the high court said. The high court observed that the petitioner’s birth certificate, which is “one of the most important public records”, and which “enjoys a presumption of correctness” under Indian Evidence Act does reflect the petitioner’s father name as “Surendar Prasad Shrivastav”, though there may be a spelling mismatch between the name as shown in the birth certificate which spells the first name of the petitioner’s father as “Surendar” instead of “Surendra” and the last name as “Shrivastav” instead of “Shrivastava”. Juxtaposing this document with the petitioner’s Aadhaar card which reflects her father’s name as “Surendra Srivastav” and the domicile and ration card held by the petitioner’s mother which reflects the petitioner’s father’s name in vernacular as “सुरेश श्रीवास्तव”, the court said that it is difficult to retain doubts about whether the petitioner’s father name is indeed “Surendra Prasad Shrivastav”.

 

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