22/02/2026
Identity Beyond Lineage: A Child's Right to Her Mother's Name and Caste
This is a judgment of the Bombay High Court (Aurangabad Bench), decided on February 2, 2026, by a Division Bench of Justices Hiten S. Venegavkar and Vibha Kankanwadi.
Facts: A 12-year-old girl (Petitioner No. 1), born of a r**e committed by her biological father, was raised solely by her single mother (Petitioner No. 2), a Scheduled Caste (Mahar) woman. The father's name and caste ("Maratha") had been entered in the child's school records at birth. Following a settlement in 2022 under which the father relinquished all parental rights, the mother sought correction of the child's name and caste entry in school records from "Maratha" to "Scheduled Caste – Mahar." The school authorities rejected the request, citing the Secondary School Code as not permitting such corrections.
Held: The Court allowed the writ petition on both counts. On the name correction, it held that the blanket refusal violated the Full Bench ruling in *Janabai v. State of Maharashtra*, which treats such changes as correctable "obvious mistakes." On the caste correction, drawing on Articles 14, 15, 21, and Directive Principles, and relying on *Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika v. State of Gujarat* (SC), *Ku. Noopur Ambre*, and *Sonal Vahanwala*, the Court held that caste identity is not mechanically determined by paternal lineage — lived social reality and upbringing are decisive. Where a child is raised exclusively within the mother's Scheduled Caste community and is permanently severed from the father, insisting on the father's caste entry is constitutionally untenable.
The Court directed the school to correct the child's name and enter "Scheduled Caste – Mahar" in school records, and directed the competent authority to process a caste certificate application on the mother's caste, applying a fact-sensitive approach.
