Chhattisgarh HC orders Bilaspur college to restore pre-marriage name on degrees: silence in rules is no bar
Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad quashed a governing body resolution of the Government Bilasa Girls Post Graduate College that refused to correct the records of a graduate whose marriage had been annulled, holding under Jigya Yadav that an autonomous college cannot treat the absence of a rule as a prohibition when a Family Court decree, a gazette notification and school records all establish her identity.
A Bilaspur woman who studied for six years under her married name, had the marriage annulled, and then found every government job application tripping over the mismatch between her degrees and her identity documents has won a direction from the Chhattisgarh High Court that her college must correct its records. Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad on 29 October 2026 quashed the 6 March 2023 resolution of the governing body of the Government Bilasa Girls Post Graduate College (Autonomous), Bilaspur, which had refused Surabhi Yadav's request on the sole ground that no provision in its ordinance or rules allowed a name change after results were declared. Applying the Supreme Court's decision in Jigya Yadav v. CBSE, the judge held that the “absence of a specific procedural provision does not necessarily amount to a substantive prohibition”, and gave the college six weeks to process the correction subject to affidavit, indemnity, gazette notice and verification.
Surabhi Yadav in school, Suhana Ansari in college
The petitioner, now 31 and a resident of Sarkanda, Bilaspur, belongs to the Other Backward Classes and holds caste and domicile certificates. Her Class X marksheet of 2009 records her as Ku. Surabhi Yadav; her Class XII marksheet of 2011 from the Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education, Raipur, records Surabhi Yadav, daughter of Shiv Shankar Yadav, with her mother shown as Sulekha Yadav. On 12 April 2012 she married Rajik Ahmed Ansari according to Muslim rites and came to be known as Suhana Ansari. In 2013 she took admission under that name at the Bilasa Girls college, an autonomous institution affiliated to Atal Bihari Vajpayee University, Bilaspur, and completed a B.Sc. in Home Science (2013-16), an M.Sc. in Home Science with Human Development (2016-17) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Guidance and Counselling (2018-19).
Her B.Sc. and M.Sc. marksheets and degree certificates describe her as Smt. Suhana Ansari, W/o Rajik Ahmed Ansari. The 2019 PG Diploma certificate, however, describes her as Ku. Suhana Ansari, Father/Husband of Rajik Ahmed Ansari, while naming her biological mother, Sulekha. The college's own records thus described the same student three different ways.
The marriage did not last. By judgment and decree of 24 February 2022 in Civil Suit No. 447-A/2021, the Principal Judge, Family Court, Bilaspur, declared the marriage nullified. She reverted to Surabhi Yadav, daughter of Shiv Shankar Yadav, in her Aadhaar card, caste and domicile certificates, bank records and other government documents, and the State Government published a notification on 28 April 2023 recognising the name. When she applied for government posts, the inconsistent names on her academic records became a serious impediment and in some cases led to rejection at the threshold.
She applied to the authorities on 17 and 20 May 2022 for correction. Nothing happened, so she filed W.P.(C) No. 2521 of 2022; a coordinate bench disposed of it on 3 November 2022, directing her to submit a detailed representation and the University to decide it in accordance with law. The University forwarded her representation to the college on 24 November 2022 and told her by letter of 3 January 2023 that its bye-laws contained no provision for a name change and that the autonomous college would have to consider the matter. The college's governing body met on 6 March 2023 and rejected the request because there was no enabling provision in the ordinance or rules for altering the name or issuing an amended marksheet. Later, on 2 December 2023, the University Grants Commission wrote to the University's Registrar asking it to resolve the grievance in the light of the 3 November 2022 order.
Four sets of respondents, one argument in common: go somewhere else
Mr Avinash K. Mishra, for the petitioner, argued that the controversy was about correction and restoration of an undisputed identity, not creation of a new one. The college had accepted the changed name at admission and used it for years; it could not now take the inconsistent stand that the original name could not be restored once the marriage that produced the change had been judicially ended. He relied on paragraph 194 of Jigya Yadav (Minor) v. Central Board of Secondary Education, (2021) 7 SCC 535, where the Supreme Court held that a change sought on the strength of public documents such as a birth certificate, Aadhaar or election card may be entertained subject to reasonable safeguards. The Husband/Father entry on the diploma showed the error lay with the institution itself, and the back of the college's own marksheets provided for correction of errors on payment of prescribed charges even after the stipulated period. On the alternative remedy, he said the UGC (Redress of Grievances of Students) Regulations, 2023 and the notification of 11 April 2023 came years after she finished her courses, contained no retrospective clause, and in any case listed grievance categories (admission, withholding of documents, fees, examinations, discrimination and the like) that did not cover a request to correct identity particulars on the basis of a court decree and a gazette notification.
Mr Jitendra Nath Nande, for the UGC, said the Commission was a formal party: it had neither issued the certificates nor passed the resolution, and its role under Section 26 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 was regulatory. The petition should be dismissed for the efficacious alternative remedy under the 2023 Regulations. Relying on Board of Secondary Education of Assam v. Md. Sarifuz Zaman, 2003 Supp (6) SCR 1273, as followed by the Chhattisgarh High Court in Anup Kumar Soni v. State of Chhattisgarh, W.P.(C) No. 1612 of 2015, he argued that nobody has an indefeasible right to alter a name in academic records, particularly after a long lapse of time and after completing the course. The prayer to reconsider the college's recognition was disproportionate and unconnected to an individual grievance, and no compensation could lie against the UGC, which had already written to the University on 2 December 2023.
Dr Arham Siddiqui, Panel Lawyer, for the State and the college, said no enforceable legal right had been infringed. The governing body was the competent authority and had taken a reasoned decision within the framework the University itself had indicated. The petitioner had filled her own examination forms as Suhana Ansari, W/o Rajik Ahmed Ansari for the Bachelor of Home Science examinations of 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 and again for the diploma examination of 2018-19; the records faithfully reflected what she had supplied. A Family Court decree and changed identity documents did not by themselves authorise retrospective alteration of certificates already issued where the governing rules contained no provision for it, and allegations of mala fides were unsupported. Dr Sudeep Agrawal, for the University, said it too was a formal party: under the UGC notifications of 12 February 2018 and 3 April 2023, an autonomous college conducts examinations, declares results and issues marksheets and other documents, while the parent University merely confers the degree, so it could not alter what it had not issued. It had complied with the 3 November 2022 order, and the petitioner had the 2023 Regulations remedy.
Jigya Yadav: correction, change, and the two kinds of change
Justice Prasad began with the law, which he said was no longer open to debate. Jigya Yadav distinguished a “correction”, which brings a certificate into line with existing school records, from a “change”, which does not, and rejected any approach that makes alteration impossible merely because the examination is over or the result declared; administrative efficiency cannot be elevated to a level that makes it practically impossible to alter one's identity in educational certificates where the change is genuine and lawful. Paragraph 194 split “change” into two situations. Where it rests on public documents such as a birth certificate, Aadhaar or election card, the legal presumption attaching to public documents under the Evidence Act means the authority cannot ignore them and may entertain the request, subject to reasonable conditions: a sworn affidavit and indemnity, prescribed fees, public notice and gazette publication, surrender of the original certificate, and a fresh certificate that retains the original entry with an annotation and a disclaimer. Where the change is to a name newly acquired by choice without supporting documents, the authority may insist on a prior court declaration and gazette publication, because it has no mechanism to verify the claim. The judgment reproduced paragraphs 192 to 195 of the Supreme Court's conclusions and directions to the CBSE in full.
The question he framed was whether the college was justified in rejecting the request solely because no specific provision permitted the alteration, without considering her original school records, the Family Court decree and the later public and governmental documents, and whether, absent an express prohibition, it could refuse outright instead of examining genuineness and devising safeguards.
A complete chain of identity, and an error the college made itself
The judge answered for the petitioner, and gave several reasons. First, the request was founded on a complete and legally established chain of identity: Surabhi Yadav in school, Suhana Ansari during a marriage, and Surabhi Yadav again after a competent court nullified that marriage, with the restoration recorded in Aadhaar and other identity documents and in the State notification of 28 April 2023. The college name was not an unexplained or fabricated identity but one adopted during the subsistence of the marriage, and the request was supported by a judicial decree and contemporaneous public records rather than a self-serving declaration.
Second, she was not seeking to erase her academic history or create a new educational identity. The course, year of admission, year of passing, subjects, marks and qualification would all remain the same; only the name and parentage would change. Third, the objection that she had herself filled the forms as Suhana Ansari could not justify an absolute refusal. An institution may ordinarily rely on the particulars a student supplies and need not investigate every personal circumstance, but that principle cannot become a permanent embargo against correction when later events, proved by reliable documents, show that the identity has changed or been restored.
Fourth, the governing body's reasoning rested on an unduly technical reading of the silence in its rules. The distinction between the absence of a rule prescribing a procedure and the existence of a rule prohibiting the relief was, the judge said, fundamental. The respondents had pointed to no statute, ordinance, regulation or binding rule that expressly prohibits restoring a candidate's name where the request is backed by a court decree and public documents; they relied only on the absence of an enabling provision. Silence could not be elevated into a prohibition when the consequence would be to perpetuate in the official record an identity that judicial and governmental authorities had recognised as no longer hers. At most, the gap called for a reasonable procedure and appropriate safeguards before making the alteration.
Fifth, she had moved promptly: applications within three months of the decree, a writ petition the same year, and a representation as soon as the coordinate bench directed one. This was not a case of someone sleeping over rights for decades. Sixth, the University's own stand that the autonomous college alone controls the marksheets and certificates confirmed where the power lay, but possessing administrative control over records could not become a ground for refusing to exercise it fairly and reasonably.
The alternative remedy under the 2023 Regulations did not persuade the court to stay its hand. The petitioner had already come to court once, her representation had been considered under judicial direction, and the authorities had then taken a final decision. What was under challenge was the legality of a specific administrative decision resting on an erroneous view of the governing body's own power, and the respondents had not shown that the grievance mechanism was an efficacious remedy for the precise relief sought against an autonomous college's records in these circumstances. Autonomy was no answer either: it exists to promote academic excellence and independent administration, not to confer immunity from fairness, reasonableness and non-arbitrariness, and a governing body's decision founded on an erroneous legal premise is open to scrutiny under Article 226.
The judge added that educational certificates are relied upon throughout a person's public and professional life, for further admission, employment, identity verification and public appointments, so an inconsistent name creates serious practical difficulties, which is exactly why Jigya Yadav struck a balance between the integrity of records and genuine correction. He referred to the Delhi High Court's decision in Sahil Arsh v. National Medical Commission of 4 February 2026, treated as persuasive only, for the proposition that a blanket prohibition on correction after results is impermissible and that educational authorities “cannot treat the declaration of a result as an absolute point of no return”. The present case, he said, stood on stronger footing still, because the documentary trail ran from school records through the marriage, the decree, the restored public documents and the gazette notification, and the respondents had never alleged that the petitioner was a different person or questioned the authenticity of the decree or the documents.
The college's own paperwork sealed the point. Its B.Sc. and M.Sc. records called her Suhana Ansari W/o Rajik Ahmed Ansari while the diploma record called her Ku. Suhana Ansari Husband/Father of Rajik Ahmed Ansari and showed her mother as Sulekha; the marksheets did not even consistently record the mother's name. So even on the respondents' own argument that the student's particulars must be reproduced faithfully, the diploma record did not reproduce them. Describing a husband as a father could not be defended by invoking the sanctity of academic records, and preserving an erroneous entry was not the same as preserving that sanctity. The judge accepted that records must be stable and that courts should not allow casual alteration on vague claims, because of the risk of fraud and impersonation, but the answer to that risk is verification and safeguards, not an absolute bar. He also drew on paragraphs 124 to 127 of Jigya Yadav, which, citing Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, (2018) 10 SCC 1, treat a name as one of the foremost indicators of identity and the expression of identity as protected by Article 19(1)(a), while noting that a change of identity is complete only when the State and its agencies record it.
Order
The writ petition, WPC No. 3837 of 2023, was allowed with no order as to costs. The governing body's resolution of 6 March 2023 was quashed and set aside. The college was directed to reconsider and process the petitioner's request for restoration and correction of her name in all academic records, marksheets, certificates and other documents it had issued, covering the B.Sc. Home Science, M.Sc. Home Science/Human Development and Post Graduate Diploma in Guidance and Counselling, in accordance with Jigya Yadav. The petitioner must furnish all original documents and such affidavit, indemnity, gazette publication or public notice, prescribed fee or other reasonable safeguards as the college may lawfully require; on verification and satisfaction as to her identity, the college must issue corrected or revised documents, or an appropriate endorsement or certificate, showing her name as Surabhi Yadav D/o Shiv Shankar Yadav, Mother Sulekha Yadav. No separate direction to alter the marksheets was issued against the University, given its stand that the autonomous college controls them, but the University must extend all consequential cooperation and endorsement needed under the UGC framework or its own procedure so that the correction is reflected in its records and in the degree or other University documents. The whole exercise is to be completed expeditiously, preferably within six weeks of receipt of a certified copy of the order.
The court made clear that the respondents may not reject the request merely because no provision in the existing ordinance or rules authorises a change of name after declaration of results, and that any procedural requirement they consider necessary must be communicated to her in writing with a reasonable opportunity to comply. The correction must not alter her course, year of admission, examination, marks, division, qualification or any other academic particular, and the respondents may keep an internal record of the earlier name so that the record remains verifiable. The prayers for reconsideration of the college's recognition, for departmental action against the respondent officials and for compensation were declined for want of material showing mala fide conduct or a legally compensable loss. The judge recorded that the order does not mean every request to alter a name in educational records must be accepted; what is impermissible is a blanket refusal founded solely on the proposition that a record can never be corrected once a result is declared. The order was reserved on 22 September 2026 and delivered on 29 October 2026, and is marked AFR with the neutral citation 2026:CGHC:45686.