Aditya Mohan Chauhan v. State Of Maharashtra Through Principal Secretary And Others
2025:BHC-AUG:36602-DB
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 15150 OF 2025 Aditya Mohan Chauhan
VERSUS
State Of Maharashtra Through Principal Secretary And Others Mr. R. R. Deshmukh, Advocate for petitioner Mr. A. M. Phule, AGP for respondent-State
CORAM
: Smt. Vibha Kankanwadi & Hiten S. Venegavkar, JJ.
DATE : 17th December, 2025 PER COURT :- 1.
Present petition has been filed for correction of petitioner's mother name in school record. The petitioner submits that his mothers name is "Panmati" however, in the school record it has been wrongly mentioned as "Banmati". The petitioner has filed his copy of school leaving certificate wherein his mother's name was corrected as "Panmati". By impugned order dated 26.03.2025, respondent No. 2 has only corrected surname of the petitioner however, his mother's name was not corrected. The petitioner is relying on the Full Bench decision of this Court in Janabai Himmatrao Thakur vs. State of Maharashtra and others, [AIR OnLine 2019 Bombay 1055].
2.
In the aforesaid matter, respondent No. 2 has taken into consideration the order passed by the High Court in Writ Petition No.
2323 of 2025 in which after pressing reliance on the Janabai Thakur (Supra), the Court has permitted correction in the surname of the petitioner therein and have issued certain directions to carry out the correction in the concerned records. In the present case as well, the respondent No. 2 have permitted correction only in the surname and have refused to correct the name of the mother of the petitioner for the reasons best known to him.
We would have understood if the representation for correction of the name submitted by the petitioner was rejected in its entirety but partly allowing the application and correcting the surname of the petitioner and rejecting the application in respect of correction of the petitioner's name in spite of the fact that the concerned authority was well aware about the legal position as laid down by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Janabai Thakur (Supra) requires to be deprecated and criticized. Due to the whims of the respondent No. 2, the petitioner is unnecessarily dragged to this Court for filing of the present petition. The respondent authorities therefore, are warned from acting in contravention of the orders of the Constitutional Courts and also in violation of the settled legal principles. 3.
By order dated 26.11.2025, this Court in Writ Petition No. 14174 of 2025 have raised certain concerns in respect of non compliance of the directions and the judgment in the case of Janabai Thakur
(supra) and also several other orders which has been passed thereafter. When the query was made with the learned AGP appearing for the State as to whether directions has been issued by the concerned Principal Secretary, we inform that it is still in process and no such circular has yet been issued. This is absolutely unacceptable. When this Court has specifically brought its concern to the notice of the Principal Secretary of School Education and Sports Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai with a specific direction that the orders passed by this Court are being overlooked by the Officers due to which similar types of matters are unnecessarily getting filed and adding up to the pendency in the Courts, still the Principal Secretary has failed to issue such circular.
We condemn such behavior of the Principal Secretary and as by way of a last opportunity, we direct the Principal Secretary of School Education and Sports Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai to issue appropriate circular as stated in order dated 26.11.2025 in Paragraph No. 5 and file necessary compliance within a period of two weeks from today. 4.
As far as the present petition is concerned, we direct concerned authority to abide by the judgment of the Full Bench of this Court in case of janabai Thakur (Supra) and allow the application of the petitioner by effecting change of the petitioner's mother in the school records within a period of 15 days from today.
5.
With the aforesaid directions, we dispose of the petition. Place the matter for compliance by the Principal Secretary of School Education and Sports Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai on 07.01.2026. (Hiten S. Venegavkar, J.) (Smt. Vibha Kankanwadi, J.) B. S. Joshi