Madras High Court: P.T. Asha, J., addressed a matter in relation to adoption and modification in the birth certificate of a minor in terms of change in the name of the biological father of the child.
Legal status of a biological daughter
Petitioners are the adopted father and biological/natural mother of minor seeking direction from the Court that petitioner 1 be appointed as a father of the minor female child and consequently, the minor child be entitled to the legal status of a biological daughter with all the rights of succession and inheritance in respect of the adopted father and a modified birth certificate of the minor be issued.
Adoption Regulations and the JJ Act
Petitioners have contended that the conditions prescribed under Adoption Regulations and the Juvenile Justice Act have fully been complied with while filing the present petition.
Bench on perusal of the facts and submission in the present matter stated that the parties are all Hindus and therefore bound by the provision of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956.
In the instant matter, the biological father of the minor child died three years back, and hence proviso to Section 9(2) of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 would not be applicable to the case.
Adoption
Court observed that it is well open to the biological mother of the minor child to give her child to adoption and since both petitioner 1 and the petitioner 2 i.e. the biological mother of the child are happily married and living together and the minor has been living with them, there is no impediment to the said prayer of adoption.
Birth Certificate of the minor cannot be modified
Bench stated that on the date when the birth certificate of the minor was issued, the biological father was alive and it is him who has been described as the father of the minor child in the birth certificate.
Adoption does not sever the relationship of the minor with her biological father.
Only exception to the above is, when the biological father himself renounces his right as father of the minor and consents for the child to be taken by the adoptive father.
Court added that even in the above-stated cases, only the status of being a biological father does not change, only the status of adoptive father, custody and maintenance of the minor child changes hands.
In the present matter, the biological mother cannot deprive the minor child’s right to have the name of her biological father in her birth certificate.
Registration of the births is governed by the provisions of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969.
Under what circumstances can a correction or cancellation of the entry in the register of births and deaths be made?
Court stated that only under the following circumstances the birth certificate can be modified:
(a) When the entry is erroneous in form or substance; and
(b) The entry has been fraudulently or improperly made.
Under Section 15 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 it is clear that the original entry cannot be corrected/deleted and the incorporation of the new details can be made only in the margin.
In the present matter, Rule 5 of Tamil Nadu Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 2000 talks about adoption and prescribes a form. Serial Nos. 7 and 8 relate to the name of the adoptive mother and the adoptive father.
Hence, the petitioner’s request to delete the biological father’s name from the original birth certificate is not legally sustainable since the rules clearly provide for incorporating the name of the adoptive parents separately in column nos. 7 and 8 as adoptive parents and not as natural parents.
Court held that the substitution of the name of petitioner 1 as the biological father of the minor cannot be permitted and taking into consideration the Rule 5 of Tamil Nadu Registration of Births and Death Rules, 2000, Court directed for issuance of a birth certificate as contained in Form 1-A of the Rules by effecting entries in column nos. 6,7,8,9 and 10 and the original birth certificate shall remain unaltered.
In view of the above, the original petition was allowed. [Vivek Narendran, In Re., 2020 SCC OnLine Mad 1758, decided on 20-07-2020]