Meena Lahariya vs. Union Of INDIA

Held

The Court held that the petitioner had placed on record multiple statutory documents issued by competent authorities, which consistently reflected her date of birth as 02-02-1963, and there was no material to doubt their authenticity. The Court found that the discrepancy likely originated in the earlier manual passport issuance and continued inadvertently. It was of the considered view that procedural technicalities should not defeat substantive rights, especially when correction is sought based on authentic and legally recognized documents. The Court noted that the Gazette Notification dated 24.02.2025 clearly permits consideration of such documents for establishing date of birth. Therefore, denying correction solely on the ground of prior incorrect entries would be unjust and contrary to the spirit of the notification. The Court directed respondents No. 2 and 3 to process the petitioner's online application for re-issuance of the passport, taking into consideration the statutory documents for correcting the date of birth to 02-02-1963, and to re-issue the passport with the corrected date of birth at the earliest.

Facts

The petitioner, Meena Lahariya, proprietor of M/s Kailash Enterprises, filed a writ petition seeking correction of her date of birth in her passport. Her correct date of birth is 02-02-1963, which is consistently reflected in her Aadhaar Card, PAN Card, Voter ID, LIC policies, and GST Registration. The initial passport was issued in 2002 with an incorrect date of birth due to a manual process. A subsequent re-issuance in 2011 also carried the error. Upon expiry of the passport in 2021, her online application for re-issuance was filed, but the authorities failed to correct the date of birth. The petitioner relied on a Gazette Notification dated 24.02.2025 for supporting her claim.

Key Issues

1. Whether the respondents (Union of India and passport authorities) are legally obligated to process the petitioner's online application for passport re-issuance and correct her date of birth to 02-02-1963, based on the statutory documents submitted, in light of the Gazette Notification dated 24.02.2025? Petitioner's arguments: The petitioner contended that her correct date of birth is consistently reflected in multiple statutory and government-recognized documents, including Aadhaar Card, PAN Card, Voter ID, LIC policies, and GST Registration. She argued that the discrepancy arose from an inadvertent error during the manual issuance process of her earlier passport and persisted in subsequent re-issuances. She relied on the Gazette Notification dated 24.02.2025, specifically Sub-clause (b)(ii) of Clause 2, which recognizes documents like PAN Card, Voter ID, and LIC policies as valid proof of date of birth, asserting that she meets these criteria. Revenue's arguments: The learned counsel for the Union of India opposed the petition and prayed for its rejection.