Bengaluru: The high court asked the director of municipal administration to issue directions to all registrars of births and deaths that in the event of any correction being carried out in a birth certificate already issued, the original one must be cancelled.
The original birth certificate must be collected from the person and the corrected one should be issued to him/her necessarily with an endorsement that the earlier certificate has been cancelled, the court said.
“It is needless to say necessary entries will also have to be made in the e-janma portal,” Justice Suraj Govindaraj said while allowing a petition filed by Syeda Afifa Aymehn, a resident of Hosapete town, Vijaynagar district.
The petitioner was born on March 15, 1993. However, due to a mistake, the date shown in the birth certificate was May 13, 1993. In all other documents such as SSLC and college records, voter ID, the date was March 15, 1993. In 2020, Syeda initiated proceedings under Section 13(3) of Registration of Births and Deaths Act before a Hosapete court. The matter was referred to Lok Adalat and a direction was issued to the authorities to issue a corrected birth certificate showing the date of birth as March 15, 1993. The same was done.
Thereafter, Syeda approached the passport authorities with the newly issued birth certificate for change of name in her blue book. However, they declined to rectify her date of birth in their records, pointing to the fact that there are two birth certificates in existence. She was told to reach out to the competent authority. When she approached the registrar of births and deaths, Hosapete town, seeking cancellation of the first birth certificate, she was told to get an appropriate order from the court. The petitioner then approached the high court.
After perusing the materials on record, Justice Suraj Govindaraj said when the second birth certificate has been issued, the respondent (registrar of births and deaths, Hosapete) ought to have cancelled the earlier one.
“Without cancelling the earlier birth certificate, another one has been issued with a different date, and now the respondent, by calling upon the petitioner to approach the appropriate court of law and obtain a necessary order to correct the mistake committed by the respondent, is driving the petitioner to this court in unnecessary litigation,” the judge pointed out.