Mumbai: A child raised exclusively by her mother cannot be compelled to carry her father’s name, surname, and caste merely because the format once demanded it, the Bombay high court said in response to a 12-year-old girl’s plea for correction of her name in school records and of the caste entry from ‘Maratha’ to ‘Scheduled Caste’.The HC ruling, made available on Wednesday, stated: “Recognition of a single mother as a complete parent for purposes of a child’s civic identity is not an act of charity; it is constitutional fidelity. It reflects the movement from patriarchal compulsion to constitutional choice, from lineage as fate to dignity as right.” The court further said, “A society that claims to be developing cannot insist that a child’s public identity must be anchored to a father who is absent from the child’s life, while the mother, who bears the entire burden of upbringing, remains administratively secondary. The state’s formats must not become moral judgments; they must become accurate instruments of welfare.”The child’s request was rejected by the school authorities last year, citing Secondary School Code and claiming such correction was impermissible. She then approached HC, which allowed the girl to change her name and caste in school records.“A school record is not a private note; it is a public document that follows a child across years, institutions, and sometimes into the professional domain,” observed Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and H S Venegaonkar from the Aurangabad bench of Bombay high court in a February 2 judgment. “If the lived guardianship is maternal, the record cannot insist on paternal visibility as a matter of routine, and then call it administrative neutrality.”The child’s mother is a single parent and her natural guardian, HC said. The mother had accused the child’s father of sexual assault. Later, they reached a settlement, and it was agreed that the daughter would remain in the permanent custody of the mother.The minor and her mother, both petitioners asserted that continuation of the father’s name and surname in the school record does not merely create an inaccuracy, “it creates an avoidable social vulnerability for a child who must grow up, learn, and form her identity in society that often treat names as identity for family history”. “Administrative registers exist to record facts in aid of welfare and governance; they are not meant to fossilise identity irrespective of changed circumstances…” the judgment authored by Justice Venegaonkar said.In Maharashtra, the state itself has, in recent years, moved decisively towards institutional recognition of the mother’s identity as an essential component of identity in government documentation, the HC noted. It cited a March 14, 2024 government resolution (GR) that mandates mother’s name be mandatorily included in govt records, including school and other documents. The GR also acknowledges that where custody is granted to the mother — for example, upon divorce — she may request that the child’s name be recorded by placing the mother’s name in place of the father’s name, subject to conditions.
