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 : 14049 of 2008 Between: Samineni Nihar S/o. Rama Mohana Rao R/o. H.No.32-2-63, Rahul Gandhi Nagar, New Paloncha, Khammam Dist. ..... PETITIONER AND The Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, Regional Passport Office, Hyderabad, rep by the Passport Officer.' .....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 any appropriate writ order or direction particularly one in the nature of writ of mandamus declaring the action of the respondent in insisting for a declaratory order from the competent civil court for correction of date of birth as arbitrary, illegal, and violative of Article 14 & 21 of the Constitution of India and consequently direct the respondent to correct the date of birth of the petitioner as 24.7.1987 instead of 01/07/1987 based on the S.S.C. Marks Memo without insisting for the declaratory order from the civil court. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.CHANDRAIAH SUNKARA Counsel for the Respondent No.: . The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition has been ﬁled by Samineni Nihar 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 his date of birth in his passport bearing No.A6627939 and insisting him to produce a declaratory order from the competent civil Court, as arbitrary and illegal. 2. The father of the petitioner made an application in the year 1998 for issuance of passport to the petitioner through a middleman. Passport came to be issued to the petitioner on 13.11.1998 vide passport bearing No.A6627939. His date of birth is mentioned in the passport as 01.07.1987. The validity of the passport is upto 12.11.2008. The petitioner came to know that his date of birth mentioned in the passport as 01.07.1987 is incorrect and his correct date of birth is 24.07.1987. He pursued B.Tech. course from Nishitha College of Engineering and Technology, Lemoor village, Kandukur Mandal, Ranga Reddy District. He made applications to various foreign universities for M.Tech. Programme. One such university was NPU. The said University sent e-mail dated 28.04.2008 informing him that his date of birth mentioned in his application form is not consistent with the date of birth mentioned in the passport. Thereupon, he made an application, dated 21.05.2008 to the respondent authorities seeking correction of date of birth in the passport. He made repeated reminders to the respondent authorities requesting to correct his date of birth in the passport from 01.07.1987 to 24.07.1987. The respondent-Authorities returned the said application and orally informed him to get a declaratory order from the civil Court for correction of date of birth. Hence, he 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 from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. 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