Bombay High Court notice to BMC over woman’s plea

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday by way of last chance to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) directed it to file a reply on a 31-year-old woman’s plea seeking that she should not be compelled by the civic authorities to record the name of her daughter’s biological father on the birth certificate.

The woman, a Nalasopara resident, who moved the court last year, is an unwed mother who had given birth to a baby girl following a test tube method in August 2016. She then requested the BMC’s birth registration department to permit her to leave the space for the father’s name on the child’s birth certificate blank. When the BMC refused permission, she approached the High Court.

In her petition filed through advocate Uday Warunjikar, the woman relied on a 2015 judgement of the apex court that stated that single mothers must not be compelled to disclose the name of their child’s biological father in the birth certificates.

Similarly, hearing another petition of a 22-year-old single unwed mother, the court has summoned the child’s biological father to be present in the next hearing. Claimed that she gave birth out of wedlock, she sought to be permitted to delete the name of the child’s biological father from the child’s birth certificate. The BMC denied permission saying that rules permit to amend an entry on a birth or death certificate only if it finds it to be erroneous.

THE APPEAL

The woman appealed that she not be compelled  by the civic authority to record the name of her child’s father in her kid’s birth certificate as she gave birth following the test tube method.