Shivangi Prakash –
The Kerala High Court has received a petition challenging the Kerala Registration of Births and Deaths Rules in so far as they require the mention of the father’s name when registering a child’s birth. Such a requirement is discriminatory toward single mothers.
The petitioner became pregnant after undergoing artificial insemination, which entails taking sperm from a donor whose identity is kept secret.
She has filed this case because she feels aggrieved by the obligation to provide the details of the child’s father in order to register the birth/death certificate according to the Rules.
On behalf of the petitioner, attorney Aruna A will appear.
She claims that a review of forms 1-9 of the aforementioned Rules reveals that they are unjust, illegal, and arbitrary from the standpoint of single moms and their children.
The forms only allow for the display of the father’s name, and this emphasis on a father’s name was claimed to be unconstitutional because it was impossible.
Although the petitioner was once married, she and her husband have divorced, and the child’s father is not her former husband. Because the petitioner is unaware of the identity of the anonymous donor, she claims that demanding his information for the registration of the child’s birth is unlawful.
Furthermore, she claims that excluding a mother’s information from a child’s or person’s birth and death certificates is sex discrimination, and so arbitrary and in violation of Article 14.
“A woman in India, who has crossed the age of 18 years, has the right to become pregnant through an IVF procedure accepting sperm of an anonymous donor as the petitioner did. Therefore, the laws of the land should also recognise the right of a woman to raise her child as a single mother, especially in situations where the name of the father/sperm donor can not be disclosed,” the petition reads
It is also contended that leaving the field on the certificate needing the father’s data blank would violate the petitioner’s and her child’s right to privacy because the fact that the child was born out of wedlock is personal information.
As a result, the petitioner has asked that the column on birth certificates for children born to a single mother that requires the father’s information be eliminated.
