Hon’ble Sri Justice C.V.Nagarjuna Reddy Writ Petition No.15855 of 2010 Dated 01st August, 2011 Between: Bhonagiri Sarala …Petitioner And Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation reptd by its Chief Medical Officer of Health and Principal Registrar, Birth and Deaths, Hyderabad. …Respondent Counsel for the petitioner : Sri A.Mahadev Counsel for respondent : Sri R.Radhakrishna Reddy, Standing Counsel for GHMC The Court made the following: ORDER: This writ petition is filed for a Mandamus to direct the respondent to correct the name of the petitioner as B.Sarala in the Birth extracts of her sons namely Pranay and Praneeth, who are born on 16.11.1998 and 09.08.2000 respectively. This case is a paradigm of the short-sighted and patently narrow minded approach of the officer concerned in interpreting a statutory provision with as plain a language as possible. Such approach has driven the hapless family to resort to the remedy of judicial review on more than one occasion. The facts which do not appear to be in dispute are that the petitioner is the mother of two persons by names Pranay and Praneeth. Evidently, in the Birth certificate issued in the year 1998 relating to her first son, the petitioner’s name was mentioned as B.Rukmini (Sarala) and in the Birth certificate issued in connection with the birth of her second son, her name was shown as B.Rukmini. The husband of the petitioner has approached the respondent by filing an application for correction of the petitioner’s name by mentioning her name correctly in the two birth registers. The same was returned by the Chief Medical Officer of Health and Principal Registrar, Birth and Deaths of the respondent-Corporation on the following reason: - “Correction of mother name will not be covered under Section 15 of Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969.” This order of rejection, dated 22.06.2009, was questioned by the husband of the petitioner by filing Writ Petition No.22210 of 2009. This Court declined to interfere with the said order on the sole ground that neither the persons in whose favour birth certificates were issued nor the person whose name is sought to be corrected filed the application and therefore, no relief can be granted. This Court, however, left the aggrieved party free to make appropriate application in accordance with law and directed the respondent to consider and dispose of the same on merits as and when such an application is made. Thereafter, the petitioner, who wants her name to be corrected, has herself filed the application on 03.02.2010. The said application was again rejected by the respondent on the same ground on which the earlier application was rejected. The petitioner is, therefore, forced to file this writ petition. On behalf of the respondent, Sri S.Aleem Basha, In- charge Chief Medical Officer of Health and Principal Registrar, Births and Deaths, filed a counter-affidavit, wherein it is inter alia stated that the respondent has registered the name of the petitioner as B.Rukmini (Sarada) in the Birth Register in respect of her two children on the basis of the information furnished by Navodaya Nursing Home, Hyderabad; that ten years thereafter, the petitioner made an application for change of her name; and that she failed to explain the reasons for inordinate delay in seeking such correction. It was asserted that if the petitioner found that her name was wrongly entered, she should have brought the same to the notice of the Registrar immediately and that she is seeking the name to be changed after expiry of 12 years. He has further stated that Section 15 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, (for short ‘the Act’) empowers the Registrar to correct the error or cancel the entry of any birth or death in the register by suitable entry in the margin, without any alteration of the original entry, and shall sign the marginal entry and add thereto the date of the correction or cancellation, provided it is proved to the satisfaction of the Registrar that such entry has been fraudulently or improperly made. According to the understanding of the deponent of the counter-affidavit, Section 15 of the Act empowers the Registrar to correct or cancel the entry of any birth or death of a person, but it does not provide any power to him to change the name of the parent in birth certificate of a child. For deciding the issue arising in the writ petition, it is useful to reproduce Section 15 of the Act which reads as under: - Correction or cancellation of entry in the register of births and deaths:- “If it is proved to the satisfaction of the Registrar that any entry of a birth or death in any register kept by him under this Act is erroneous in form or substance, or has been fraudulently or improperly made, he may, subject to such rules as may be made by the State Government with respect to the conditions on which and the circumstances in which such entries may be corrected or cancelled, correct the error or cancel the entry by suitable entry in the margin, without any alteration of the original entry, and shall sign the marginal entry and add thereto the date of the correction or cancellation.” The copy of Form No.9 filed by the petitioner contains inter alia the entries of name of the father and also name of the mother. From the above reproduced provision, it is clear that if it is proved to the satisfaction of the Registrar that any entry of a birth or death in any register kept by him under the Act is erroneous in form or substance or has been fraudulently or improperly made, he may, subject to such rules as may be made by the State Government, correct the error or cancel the entry by suitable entry in the margin without any alteration of the original entry. As noted above, on both the occasions, the officer concerned of the respondent-Corporation has rejected the applications on the sole ground that there is no provision for change of the name of the mother. He seems to be completely oblivious of the wide scope of the expressions “any entry of a birth or death” and “in form or substance” in Section 15 of the Act. It is, therefore, indubitable that the entry relating to name of the mother falls within the expression “any entry of a birth or death” under Section 15 of the Act. In the face of such a plain language of the provisions of Section 15 of the Act, which does not admit of any other interpretation, the Registrar has rejected the request on both the occasions by taking the stand that there is no provision for the change of the mother’s name. Such an approach betrays casual approach on the part of the officer which has driven the petitioners to needless litigation. It is not the case of the Registrar that the petitioner failed to produce sufficient proof in support of her claim for change of her name. The Registrar being a public servant, representing a public utility Corporation such as the respondent, is expected to conduct himself in the most responsible manner and function strictly in accordance with the statutory provisions. This Court places its thorough dissatisfaction at the way in which the Registrar has dealt with this case and caused needless litigation. The writ petition is, accordingly, allowed with costs of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten thousand only) payable by the respondent to the petitioner. The respondent is permitted to recover the said amount from the officer who is responsible for passing such a patently illegal order in accordance with law. The respondent is directed to reconsider the petitioner’s application and pass a fresh order strictly in accordance with Section 15 of the Act and in the light of the findings rendered above within a period of one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. ______________________ (C.V.Nagarjuna Reddy, J) 01st August 2011 DR