Punjab

Faridkot

CC/17/397

Sukhmit Singh - Complainant(s)

Versus

Kendriya Vidhyalaya School - Opp.Party(s)

Gurpreet Singh Chauhan

07 Jan 2019

ORDER

    DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL FORUM, FARIDKOT

 

            Complaint No. :       397

Date of Institution :  21.12.2017

Date of Decision :    7.01.2019

 

Sukhmit Singh aged about 21 years s/o Jarnail Singh r/o Bazigar Basti, Street NO.13, Faridkot, District Faridkot.

                                    .....Complainant

Versus

1. Kendriya Vidayalaya School, Faridkot through its Principal.
2. Central Board of Secondary Education, Sector 5, Panchkula-134152 through its Head of Department/Chairman.
3. Central Board of Secondary Education, “Shiksha Kendra’, 2, Community Centre, Preet Vihar, Delhi, 110092 through its Chairman.

                                                                           .........OPs

Complaint under Section 12 of the

Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

 

Quorum:     Sh. Ajit Aggarwal, President,

Ms. Parampal Kaur, Member,

Present:       Sh Gurpreet Chauhan, Ld Counsel for complainant,

 Sh Atul Gupta, Ld Counsel for OP-1,

OP-2 and OP-3 Exparte.

 

ORDER

(Ajit Aggarwal, President)

                                                  Complainant has filed the present complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 against OPs for deficiency in service and for seeking directions to OPs to correct the date of birth of complainant in the record of school as well as in the record of Board

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and for further directing OPs to pay compensation of Rs.50,000/- for inconvenience, harassment and mental agony suffered by complainants besides litigation expenses of Rs.11,000/-.

2                                                Briefly stated, the case of the complainants is that complainant took admission in the school of OP-1 in nursery and passed out his secondary class from there. Date of birth of complainant is 8.05.1996 but as per certificate issued by Registrar of Births and Death, District Faridkot, date of birth of complainant was wrongly mentioned as 8.03.1996 and date of registration is mentioned as 15.03.1996. complainant immediately brought this mistake in the notice of the then Local Registrar and Department rectified the same. It is submitted that at the time of admission of complainant in the school, parents of complainant filed wrong birth certificate with admission form which carried wrong registration date and wrong date of birth of complainant and his date of birth was wrongly updated in school record as 8.03.1996 in place of right date of birth i.e 8.05.1996. complainant and his parents never noticed this mistake. Complainant got his passport issued on 9.01.2008, but same was obtained by complainant on the basis of actual date of birth i.e8.05.1996 and this date is written on passport. Passport of complainant expired on 8.01.2013 and when he was preparing the documents for renewal of his passport, he came to know about this discrepancy. It is further submitted that for renewal of the passport, the date of birth on school certificate and on passport is required to be same, but due to inadvertently made mistake in school certificate, he is unable to renew his passport. Complainant has

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made several requests to school authorities to make correction in his date of birth certificate in school record as well as in the record of CBSE, New Delhi, but OPs denied the same. Complainant also prepared demand draft worth Rs.500/- as Correction Fee in favour of CBSE, Panchkula, but OP-1 refused to hand over the admission form  filled by his parents at the time of his admission in nursery class and other documents to complainant. legal notice issued by  complainant to OPs also served no purpose. All this act of OPs has caused great harassment and mental tension to complainant, which amounts to deficiency in service and unfair trade practice. Complainant has prayed for accepting the complaint alongwith compensation for inconvenience, harassment, mental agony and monetary loss besides cost of litigation. Hence, the complaint.

3                                              The Counsel for complainant was heard with regard to admission of the complaint and vide order dated 2.01.2018, complaint was admitted and notice was ordered to be issued to the opposite parties.

4                                              On receipt of the notice, OP-1 filed written statement taking preliminary objections that this Forum has no jurisdiction to hear and try the present complaint and it is time barred as complainant passed his Senior Secondary class in year 2011 and as per Circular dated 10.11.2017, issued by C.B.S.E, the change in the limitation period of cases pertaining to correction in name/date of birth is from one year to five years. In said circular limitation for correction in candidate, mother and father’s name / correction in date of birth has revised. Revised time limit is for five

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years from the date of declaration of result and it will be applicable to all cases after Class  tenth/twelfth examination onwards. It is further denied that parents of complainant inadvertently filed wrong birth certificate with admission form of complainant. it is averred that correction cannot be made at this stage as complaint is beyond the period of limitation. It is totally denied that answering OP ever received any demand draft worth Rs.500/-from complainant. however, after perusing his entire case, his request was declined in view of circular dated 10.11.2017 issued by CBSE. Legal notice issued by complainant was also duly replied and there is no deficiency in service on the part of answering OP. On merits, OPs have denied all the allegations of complainants being wrong and incorrect and asserted that there is no deficiency in service on the part of answering OPs. However, it is admitted by Ops that complainant passed out his senior secondary from their school. All the other allegations and allegation with regard to relief sought too were refuted with a prayer that complaint may be dismissed with costs against the answering opposite party.

5                                          Notice issued to OP-2 and OP-3 through registered cover did not receive back undelivered. It was presumed to be served. Despite expiry of statutory period, no body appeared on behalf of OP-2 and OP-3 on date fixed, therefore, vide order dated  14.03.2018, they were proceeded against exparte.                  

 6                                          Parties wanted to lead evidence to prove their respective pleadings and proper opportunity was given to them.  The

 

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complainant tendered in evidence his affidavit Ex.C-1 and documents Ex C-2 to C-12 and then, closed the evidence.

7                                                    In order to rebut the evidence of the complainant, Counsel for OPs tendered in evidence affidavit of Harjinder Kaur, Principal, as Ex. OP-1 and documents Ex OP-2 to OP-20  and then, closed the evidence.

8                                           Ld Counsel for complainant argued that complainant took admission in the school of OP-1 in nursery and passed out his secondary class from there. His Date of birth is 8.05.1996 but as per certificate issued by Registrar of Births and Death, District Faridkot, date of birth of complainant was wrongly mentioned as 8.03.1996 and date of registration is mentioned as 15.03.1996. Complainant immediately brought this mistake in the notice of the then Local Registrar and got rectified the same. At the time of admission of complainant in the school, his parents filed wrong birth certificate with admission form which carried wrong registration date and wrong date of birth of complainant and his date of birth was wrongly updated in school record as 8.03.1996 in place of right date of birth i.e 8.05.1996. Complainant and his parents never noticed this mistake. Complainant got his passport issued on 9.01.2008, but same was obtained by complainant on the basis of actual date of birth i.e 8.05.1996 and this date is written on passport. Passport of complainant expired on 8.01.2013 and when he was preparing the documents for renewal of his passport, he came to know about this discrepancy. For renewal of the passport, the date of birth on school certificate and on passport is required to be same, but due to

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inadvertently made mistake in school certificate, he is unable to renew his passport. He made several requests to school authorities to make correction in his date of birth certificate in record of school as well as in the record of CBSE, New Delhi, but OPs denied the same. Complainant submitted demand draft worth Rs.500/- as Correction Fee in favour of CBSE, Panchkula, but OP-1 refused to hand over the admission form  filled by his parents at the time of his admission in nursery class and other documents to complainant. The complainant also served legal notice OPs, but OP-1 gave a false reply. Prayer for accepting the present complaint alongwith compensation and litigation expenses is made.

9                                            To controvert the allegations of complainants, ld counsel for OP-1 argued that present complaint is time barred as complainant passed his Senior Secondary class in year 2011 and as per Circular dated 10.11.2017, issued by C.B.S.E, the change in the limitation period of cases pertaining to correction in name/date of birth is from one year to five years. In said circular limitation for correction in candidate, mother and father’s name / correction in date of birth has revised. Revised time limit is for five years from the date of declaration of result and it will be applicable to all cases after Class tenth/twelfth examination onwards. It is sternly denied that parents of complainant inadvertently filed wrong birth certificate with admission form of complainant. Correction cannot be made at this stage as complaint is beyond the period of limitation. OP-1 never received any demand draft worth Rs.500/-from complainant. After perusing his entire case, his request was declined in view of circular dated 10.11.2017 issued by CBSE. Legal notice issued by complainant was also duly replied.

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It is further argued that there is no deficiency in service on the part of OP-1 and  requested for dismissal of present complaint.

10                                                     We have heard learned counsel for parties and have very carefully gone through the affidavits & documents placed on the file by complainant as well as opposite party.

11                                                  Careful perusal of the case file shows that it is the admitted case of parties that complainant took admission in the school of OP-1 in Nursery and passed out his senior secondary class from there i.e he remained there for long time and completed his education upto secondary level from there. Grievance of complainant is that his wrong date of birth is mentioned in the record of school as well as in the record of CBSE. When this thing came into his notice while getting renewed his passport, he approached OPs and requested them to correct the same and also filled Correction Fee of Rs.500/- in the form of demand draft, but OPs refused to make any correction on the ground that period of getting any rectification in the record of OPs regarding date of birth of complainant is beyond limitation and no change in date of birth is permissible. It is observed that earlier Registrar of Birth and Death issued wrong certificate regarding date of birth of complainant, which was duly got corrected by him and he submitted the same with school authorities. Requests made by complainant and his parents to OPs for changing the date of birth in their record bore no fruit. Date of birth certificate Ex C-3 produced on record proves the pleading of complainant that date of birth of complainant is 8.05.1996 but in the certificate earlier issued by OPs, it is mentioned as

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8.03.1996. Legal notice Ex C-7 dated 3.11.2017 issued by complainant through his counsel to OPs with request to them to make correction in his date of birth is placed on record and it reveals the grievance of complainant which was not redressed by OPs. In reply to legal notice of complainant Ex 9, OP-1 has clearly stated that they cannot make any correction in the light of circular issued by C B S E dated 10.11.2017. In reply to the notice Ex C-10, OP-2 and 3 directed complainant to submit application through Principal of School alongwith relevant documents i.e true copy of Admission Form filled by parents of complainant at the time of admission duly attested by the Head of Institute, true copy of School Leaving Certificate of previous school submitted by the candidate at the time of admission, true copy of Admission and Withdrawal Register of the school where entry has been made in respect of candidate duly attested by the concerned institute.

12                                  It is observed that while sending any document pertaining to particulars of date of birth, address and name of mother/father or guardian to CBSE, New Delhi, school should check these things very carefully and should match all these documents with the birth certificate and other documents like adhar and voter identity cards and other documents issued by Government. Had this precaution of making thorough and careful checking been taken by OP-1 at the initial stage and at the time of sending these particulars to OP-2 and Op-3 at the time of sending registration at tenth level, nature of case would have been different as there would have been no grievance of complainant. There is no doubt that complainant as well as his father made several requests to OPs to change his date of birth in their record in accordance with the Date of Birth Certificate issued by Registrar,

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Births & Deaths, Faridkot. When complainant approached OPs with request to change his date of birth in their record alongwith requisite correction fee, OPs should have made correction keeping in view the date given in Birth Certificate EX C-3. Hence, in these circumstances, we are of the considered opinion that act of OPs in not rectifying their own record amounts to deficiency in service and unfair trade practice.

13                                            In the light of above discussion, complaint in hand is hereby allowed. OPs are ordered to change the date of birth in the certificate issued to complainant as 8.05.1996 instead of 8.03.1996. The OP-1 is further directed to forward the application of complainant for the change of date of birth to OP-2 and 3 alongwith relevant documents i.e copy of Admission Form, copy of School Leaving Certificate, copy of folio of Admission and Withdrawal Register of the school regarding entry of complainant duly attested by the Head of concerned institute and other documents duly required for the correction alongwith required fees for the same which is to be paid by the complainant to OP-2 and OP-3. Compliance be made jointly and severally within one month of the receipt of the copy of the order, failing which complainants shall be entitled to proceed under section 25 and 27 of the Consumer Protection Act. Copy of the order be issued to parties as per rules. File be consigned to record room.

Announced in open Forum:

Dated: 7.01.2019

 

                                         (Param Pal Kaur)                   (Ajit Aggarwal)

Member                                      President