Case: Jigya Yadav v. C.B.S.E.
The Supreme Court established directions for the Central Board of Secondary Education to process applications for correction or amendment in certificates issued by it.
The bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari gave these orders while hearing a batch of appeals challenging the bye-law limits on candidates' or their parents' correction/change in name/surname/date of birth in certificates issued by the Board.
The court further ordered the CBSE to revise its Byelaws immediately to incorporate these rules for registering corrections or changes in certificates previously issued or to be issued by it.
The Court stated that there is no reason for the CBSE to deny such a request or impose any conditions other than a reasonable period of limitation and taking into view the period for which the CBSE is required to keep its records under the existing legislation.
The court further rejected the contention that the Board's Byelaws constitute contractual elements because CBSE is a recognised society without a statute for the following reasons:
‘CBSE is not a private corporate body. It is a juristic person and a "State" within the meaning of Article 12, which in itself warrants its amenability to the courts including constitutional writ courts; second, the functions performed by the CBSE Board are public functions and not private functions; third, the test of "force of law" takes within its sweep the nature of the rule, its authoritative impact on the subjects, nature of the function performed by the rule-making body, the origin of the body, the binding value of the rules, existence of any competing set of rules and fourth, absence of statute does not automatically render the rules to be contractual terms, as already observed.’
The court also stated that even if it determined that the Examination Byelaws are not "law" under Article 13, this would not affect the Court's ability to scrutinise them under Part III of the Indian Constitution because CBSE is a "State" under Article 12 and all of its actions are therefore subject to Part II.