"Moved Heaven, Earth": Court Relief For Viral Kumbh Girl In Date Of Birth Row

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside an order that changed Monalisa Bhosle - the viral Kumbh sensation girl's birth date and placed her below the legal age of marriage, ruling that authorities could not take a decision with such serious consequences without hearing her.

The order came with a pointed observation about her father, whose application triggered the change after she married actor Farman Khan against her family's wishes.

Her father "moved earth and heaven only after Petitioner Number 1 exercised her right of personal choice and chose to marry Petitioner Number 2", Justice Gajendra Singh observed.

The Madhya Pradesh government's legal team in the High Court was led by Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing through video conferencing, alongside Additional Advocate General Sonal Gupta, Deputy Advocate General Shrey Raj Saxena and Government Advocate Aditya Garg. Senior Advocate Vivek Krishna Tankha appeared for the petitioners with advocate Jerry Lopez.

The Indore bench on Wednesday quashed the Maheshwar Chief Municipal Officer's March 31 order cancelling her earlier birth entry. That decision had changed her recorded date of birth from January 1, 2008, to December 30, 2009, making her 16, rather than 18, when she married on March 11 this year.

The High Court has not, however, decided which birth date is correct. 

It has directed the authority to reconsider her father's application after giving her an effective hearing. The ruling neither validates the marriage nor quashes the criminal case against her husband.

Viral Kumbh Girl rose to national attention while selling beads and garlands at the 2025 Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj. Videos of her went viral, bringing film offers and transforming a young street vendor into a widely recognised social media personality. Her interfaith wedding in Kerala subsequently became the centre of a dispute involving her family, police in two states and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.

At the heart of the case were two competing records and the question of whether she herself had any say before officials altered the document governing her legal adulthood. Her earlier birth certificate recorded January 1, 2008, as her date of birth. 

The petitioners also relied on Aadhaar, PAN and voter identification documents to support her claim that she was an adult.

The court noted that an Aadhaar card issued in May 2015 already carried the January 2008 date, years before the birth certificate was issued. An election identity card had also been issued, recognising her eligibility to vote.

The birth certificate itself was obtained following an application supported by her mother's affidavit in May 2025. The affidavit stated that she had been born at home on January 1, 2008. After proceedings before the competent authority, the certificate was issued on June 5, 2025.

After the wedding, her father challenged that account.

He told the authorities that inquiries with elderly relatives had revealed that his daughter was born at the government-run Community Health Centre in Maheshwar. He relied on a hospital register recording the birth of a female child on December 30, 2009.

The state and her father argued that the hospital record was stronger evidence than a delayed birth certificate based on an estimated date supplied by the parents. They maintained that the correction was lawful and that her mother had acknowledged the earlier mistake.

The girl and her husband alleged the opposite: That records belonging to her younger brother had been manipulated to portray her as a minor after she chose her partner. They also alleged threats and attempts to communalise the marriage by branding it "love jihad".

The court did not decide these allegations of forgery or conspiracy. Its ruling turned on the denial of a hearing.

The respondents argued that the registration rules did not expressly require notice to the person whose date of birth was being changed. Notices had been issued to the parents, and her mother had replied without disputing the proposed correction.

But the court held that informing the father could not substitute for hearing the daughter whose rights were at stake.

"When petitioner number 1 is the aggrieved, then intimation only to the father does not satisfy the requirement of 'audi alteram partem'," the judge said, referring to the principle that an affected person must have an opportunity to be heard.

The consequences, the court stressed, went well beyond a corrected entry in a register.

Moving her birth date by nearly two years affected her voting rights, capacity to enter contracts, financial autonomy and choice of partner. It also exposed her partner to criminal prosecution.

"Exercise of right to choice especially in the matter of marriage is exposed to risk including the criminal prosecution of her partner," the court observed.

According to the couple's submissions recorded in the judgment, their relationship developed during a film shoot in Kerala. The viral girl alleged that her father subsequently pressured her to marry a cousin and return to Madhya Pradesh.

On March 11, she and Farman approached Thampanoor police in Thiruvananthapuram. The petitioners said police checked her documents, recorded her complaint alleging coercion, and told her family that an adult could not be forced to marry against her wishes.

The couple then married at a temple in Poovar and registered the marriage with the local panchayat.

Her family alleged that she had been lured into marriage. 

The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes subsequently concluded that she was a minor, relying on the December 2009 birth date. A POCSO case was reported against Farman in Madhya Pradesh in April. The couple disputed the age claim.

A separate criminal complaint added another dimension to the controversy. On April 29, Ernakulam Central Police registered a case under the POCSO Act against four people, including filmmaker Sanoj Mishra and VHP leader and lawyer Anil Vilayil, following her complaint.

Police said she accused Mishra of misconduct during the shooting of The Diary of Manipur. The allegation against Vilayil concerned defamation on social media. Those allegations were not adjudicated in Wednesday's birth-certificate ruling.