Mumbai: A child raised exclusively by her mother cannot be compelled to carry her father’s name and surname and caste merely because the format once demanded it, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court said while permitting a minor girl to change her name and caste in school records.
A bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Hiten Venegavkar said recognition of a single mother as a complete parent for purposes of a child’s civic identity is “not an act of charity but constitutional fidelity”.
“It reflects the movement from patriarchal compulsion to constitutional choice, from lineage as fate to dignity as right,” the court observed.
The case arose from a plea by a minor seeking correction of her name in school records to reflect her mother’s name, and a change in caste entry from “Maratha” to “Scheduled Caste–Mahar.” According to the petition, the girl’s mother is her sole natural guardian.
As per the plea, the child’s mother is single parent and her natural guardian. The mother had accused the father of sexually assaulting her. However, they later entered into a settlement under which the child remained in the mother’s permanent custody and he ceased to play any guardianship role.
The child’s request to change name and caste in the school records was rejected last year by the authorities pursuant to which she approached HC.
The bench underscored that when the state itself recognises a mother’s name as central to identity documentation, a subordinate authority cannot deny such recognition. A school record, the court said, is not a private note but a public document that follows a child through education and sometimes into professional life.
“A child raised exclusively by her mother cannot be compelled to carry, as the State’s chosen description of her, the father’s name and surname merely because the format once demanded it,” the judges said, warning that such insistence reproduces inequality rooted in patriarchal presumptions.
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The court added that the Constitution guarantees a life of dignity, which includes the right to an identity not forcibly tethered to an absent parent where doing so serves no welfare purpose. In India, it noted, name and caste shape social perception, peer conduct and access to entitlements, as well as a child’s sense of belonging.
“To insist on this presumption in contemporary India… imposes a structural burden upon women and their children,” the bench said, adding that administrative rules privileging paternal identity violate equality principles.
Finding that the child had grown up entirely within her mother’s social and caste environment, the court directed school authorities to amend her name to include her mother’s name and correct the caste entry accordingly.
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