THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO.30328 OF 2010 DATED 10TH DECEMBER, 2010 BETWEEN Vineethkumar Reddy Cheruvu … Petitioner And The Regional Passport Officer, Having Office at Clock Towers, Near Prashant Talkies, Secunderabad. … Respondent THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO.30328 OF 2010 ORDER: The petitioner is aggrieved by the inaction of the Regional Passport Officer, Secunderabad, in effecting change of his date of birth in his Passport. It is the claim of the petitioner that he was born on 11.05.1990 but his date of birth is wrongly shown as 08.01.1990 in his Passport. He therefore seeks issuance of a Passport with the correct date of birth. Earlier, under the circular dated 18.04.2001 issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, the Passport Issuing Authority was empowered, in cases pertaining to wrong entries relating to date of birth/place of birth in the Passport, to take necessary action upon the documents produced by the party in proof of the correct date of birth/place of birth. Following this circular, this Court had disposed of Writ Petition No.18383 of 2004 on 04.11.2004. Thereafter, circular dated 29.10.2007 was issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, which introduced a minor change with regard to the above power of the Passport Issuing Authority. Under the new circular, the Authority is vested with discretion to correct the date of birth without a Court order where such correction is not more than two years. In the present case, the change sought in the date of birth is by a few months. Therefore, the power of the Regional Passport Officer, Secunderabad, to deal with the matter independently is not curtailed even under the new circular. There shall accordingly be a direction to the Regional Passport Officer, Secunderabad, to act upon the petitioner’s application dated 27.09.2010 without insisting upon a Court order and effect correction of the petitioner’s date of birth in his Passport and issue a revised Passport, after duly satisfying himself about the petitioner’s correct date of birth. This exercise shall be completed within thirty (30) days from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. The Writ Petition is disposed of accordingly at the stage of admission. There shall be no order as to costs. ____________________ SANJAY KUMAR, J. 10TH DECEMBER, 2010. VGSR/PGS