CAN’T DELETE FATHER’S name from child’s birth record: BMC tells HC

MUMBAI: The city civic body has told the Bombay High Court that it has no powers to delete a birth or deathrelated entry from its records, while responding to a single mother's plea seeking a birth certificate for her child without the father's name.

The BMC’s birth registration department filed an affidavit in the court on Wednesday, stating that it did not have the authority to issue a birth certificate in the present case, without the name of the child's biological father.

The BMC was responding to a previous direction of a bench of Justices A S Oka and R I Chagla, hearing the plea of a 31-year-old woman from Nallasopara town in neighbouring Palghar district. In her plea, the woman claimed that she was unmarried and that she gave birth to a girl through the test tube method in August 2016. She claimed that since the identity of the donor in her case was kept secret by the medical authorities, there was no way for her to have given the BMC the name of her child's biological father.

However, the BMC's counsel, Suresh Pakale, produced in court the girl’s birth certificate and the original records, including the hospital form giving information about the child. —Agencies

The BMC's counsel produced in court the girl’s birth certificate, original records, including the hospital form giving information about the child