School boards can’t refuse to change names of students and parents, rules Bombay high court

The court made this observation while directing the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to change the name of the father of a Class 10 student

The law does not prohibit an individual from changing her name, and therefore school boards cannot bar her from doing so, the Bombay high court ruled.

The court made this observation while directing the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to change the name of the father of a Class 10 student.

The case pertains to Manali Barde, 18, from Nagpur. She appeared for the Class X examinations from Bhavan’s Bhagwandas Purohit Vidya Mandir, a CBSE-affiliated school, in April 2016. A month later, her father changed his name from “Shekhar” to “Chandrashekhar” and notified it in the official gazette.

Manali submitted an application to the school, seeking the change. The school in turn sent the application to the CBSE, which refused to change the name of her father in the records. This compelled her approach the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court.

At the high court, the CBSE argued as the change was not necessitate by any spelling error, the request was rightly rejected. It also claimed that the request came long after the Class 10 results were declared.

Besides, the judges said there is no legal bar on changing the name of an individual and school boards such as CBSE cannot prohibit or regulate it.