The Daily Morning Voice Online Desk: It will be sufficient if students mention their mothers’ name when filling out a student information form (SIF) for examinations, and they cannot be forced to mention their father’s name against their will, the High Court ruled today. Forms with the name of the student’s mother or any legal guardian instead of the father must be accepted, the court observed. The HC also declared illegal and unconstitutional the refusal to provide admit cards to SSC and HSC candidates who have not used their father’s name in the SIF, Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta told.

Delivering the verdict on a writ petition, the HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Md Khairul Alam said all citizens have the right to get an education and job under the constitution. Students may have difficulties in mentioning their father’s name in the SIF and if they are not allowed to complete the SIF due to not omitting their father’s name, they will be deprived of education which is contrary to their fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution, the court said. Details of the HC verdict will be known when the full text is released.

DAG Amit Das Gupta said the government had earlier taken steps so that students could complete SIFs with the name of the father, mother or any other legal guardian. There is no provision that the student must mention the name of his or her father in the SIF, he added. Lawyer Aynunnahar Siddiqua Lipi appeared for the writ petitioners. Rights organisations, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Mahila Parishad and Naripokkho submitted the petition as public interest litigation to the HC in 2009 challenging the refusals by the different boards of education to issue registration cards to the SSC and HSC candidates, who could not not complete the SIFs with names of their fathers and mothers.

In the petition, they said the candidates who were born at brothels could not mention the names of their fathers and they would be deprived of education if they were not allowed to complete their SIFs. Following the petition, another HC bench on August 3, 2009 issued a rule upon government to explain why the refusal to give admit cards to the SSC and HSC candidates, who cannot not complete the student information forms (SIFs) with the names of their fathers, should not be declared illegal. In the rule, the HC also asked the authorities concerned of the government to show cause as to why they should not be directed to amend the SIFs to include identification information regarding the name of the father, or mother, or guardian of the candidates.