Kerala HC - Every Person has the Right to only include his/her Mother's Name in their Birth Certificate

Recently, the Kerala High Court held that every person has the right to only include his/her mother's name in their birth certificate and other documents. Justice PV Kunhikrishnan held that the state must protect every citizen, even those who may have been born out of rape or wedlock. 

The Court referred to the trials that children of unwed mothers endure and emphasized that such children should also be protected since the right to reproductive choice is a fundamental right, failing which, constitutional courts will step in. The judge further said that while the dictionary may contain the word 'bastard', there should be no example for anybody to use that word against anyone.

"A child of an unwed mother is also a citizen of our country, and nobody can infringe any of his/her fundamental rights."

Background 

The single bench was hearing a plea to erase the petitioner's father's name from the birth register maintained by the Registrar of Births and Deaths (respondent) and to issue a fresh certificate showing the mother as a single parent.

The mother of the petitioner was impregnated when she was a minor under mysterious circumstances by an unidentified person.

As a result, the name of the unknown father was recorded differently in three of the petitioner's identification documents, but the mother's name was correct in all of them.

HELD

The Court referred to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, and the Kerala Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999 which empower the Registrar of Births and Deaths to make any corrections in documents. The Court allowed the father's name to be expunged from the petitioner's birth certificate and to issue a new one without the name of the father within a period of two weeks.