IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE TWENTY SIXTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE B.SESHASAYANA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 15668 of 2008 Between: Ms. Mohammadi Begum D/o. Late Mohammed Yousuf R/o. H.No. 16-6-125, Osman Pura, Chaderghat, Hyderabad. ..... PETITIONER AND Regional Passport Officer, Secunderabad. .....RESPONDENT Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court may be pleased to issue a writ of Mandamus, or any other appropriate writ, order or direction, declaring the inaction of the respondent in not correcting the date of birth of the petitioner i.e., 4.1.1981 in the pass port of the petitioner bearing No. B.5204131 basing on the Secondary School Certiﬁcate issued by the Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, as being arbitrary, illegal, unjust, contrary to the Circular No. 8.4.2001 issued by the Ministry of External Aﬀairs, Government of India and also violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and consequently direct the respondent to forthwith correct the date of birth of the petitioner in the passport bearing No.B 5204131 basing on the Secondary School Certiﬁcate issued by the Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.ALI FAROOQUE Counsel for the Respondent No.: . The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition has been ﬁled by Ms.Mohammadi Begum with a prayer to issue any appropriate writ, order or direction, more particularly, one in the nature of writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the respondent in not correcting her date of birth in the passport bearing No.B 5204131 based on the Secondary School Certiﬁcate issued by the Board of Secondary Education, A.P., Hyderabad, as arbitrary and illegal. 2. The petitioner applied for passport through a middleman in the year 2001. The respondent issued passport to the petitioner on 24.03.2001. The passport is valid upto 23.03.2011. At the time of making application for passport, her date of birth was inadvertently recorded as 12.07.1978 instead of 04.01.1981. She came to know that her correct date of birth is 04.01.1981 as per the entry in the S.S.C. marks memo issued by the Board of Secondary Education, A.P., Hyderabad. She approached the respondent authorities with an application dated 11.06.2008 for correction of her date of birth in the passport. The respondent authorities refused to entertain the same. Hence, she approached this Court invoking the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, with the prayer stated supra. 3. Notice before admission has been ordered to the respondent. Despite notice being served on the respondent, he did not choose to enter appearance either in person or through a counsel. 4. Heard learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and perused the material available on record. 5. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submits that the issue involved in this writ petition is squarely covered by the judgment of this Court in W.P.No.21035 of 2007 (Syed Khundmeer v. Regional Passport Oﬃcer, Secunderabad) . Therefore, necessary direction is required to be given to the respondent to entertain the application of the petitioner and pass appropriate orders keeping in view the Circular dated 18.04.2001 issued by the Ministry of External Aﬀairs, Government of India. 6. This Court in Durgempudi Venkata Raghava v. Passport Oﬃcer, Ministry of External Aﬀairs, Passport Office, Hyderabad [1] observed at paras 9 to 14 as hereunder : “Placing reliance on the clariﬁcation issued on the aforesaid Circular, Writ Petition No.8533 of 2004, was disposed of directing the respondents to consider the representation of the petitioner along with the Secondary School Certiﬁcate issued by Secretary, Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh and pass appropriate orders in the light of the observations made in the said judgment. It is no doubt true that the present Writ Petition was ﬁled in the year 1997 and the Government under Ministry of External Aﬀairs issued the Circular referred to supra on 18-4-2001. As can be seen from the material available on record, the certiﬁcates which had been produced before this Court, it is clear that it is only a bona ﬁde mistake which had crept in. Apart from this aspect of the matter, no counter aﬃdavit had been ﬁled denying the speciﬁc averment made in the aﬃdavit ﬁled in support of the Writ Petition that along with the application form for passport, the Travel Agent also enclosed copies of S.S.C. certiﬁcate, Intermediate certiﬁcate and also Degree certiﬁcate. Therefore, it is evident that without verifying the date of, the respondent authority just took the date of birth as ﬁlled up in the application form and issued the passport. Hence, it is needless to say that it is only a bona fide mistake. The learned Senior Standing Counsel for Central Government, no doubt submitted that in such a situation, if the passport was issued prior to the said circular it would be proper to give an opportunity to the writ petitioner to ﬁle fresh application for issuance of passport to the competent authority. In the light of the facts and circumstances, especially in view of Clause (a) of the Circular, dated 18-4-2001 referred to supra and also in view of the fact that all these copies of documents also had been produced at the time of ﬁling of the application form but a bona ﬁde mistake had crept in, the Writ Petition is disposed of with the following directions. The petitioner shall ﬁle fresh application enclosing all the copies of certiﬁcates, which are being relied upon by him, before the respondent within a period of one month from today and the respondent is directed to take into consideration of the certiﬁcates and after verifying the same, pass appropriate orders in this regard within a period of one month thereafter...” 7. In view of the Circular dated 18.04.2001 issued by the Ministry of External Aﬀairs, Government of India and also in the light of the decision referred to supra, the Writ Petition is disposed of at the admission stage directing the respondent to receive the application of the petitioner along with necessary documents if any enclosed for correction of the date of birth and dispose of the same keeping in view the guidelines issued in the Circular referred to supra, within a period of four weeks thereafter. No costs. ______________________ B.SESHASAYANA REDDY, J. Date:26th August, 2008. Note: Issue C.C. within three days. B/O cs ..... REGISTRAR // TRUE COPY // SECTION OFFICER To 1.2CCs to 2.2CD copies Form-NIC-OGS/WP{BMR} [1] 2005(1) ALT 751