Birth certificate in dock: She’s daddy’s little girl no more

AMEDABAD: A woman approached the Gujarat high court disputing her father’s claim that she is a minor, to protect her husband from criminal proceedings for abduction and offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) for eloping with her.
The case pertains to Adalaj police station, where the woman’s father registered an FIR on June 5, accusing a man of abducting his daughter. Police invoked charges of abduction and the POCSO Act.
The woman moved the high court questioning the FIR against her husband, asserting that she is an adult and walked out of her parental home on her own, because her father intended to marry her to a person not acceptable to her, and that she and the accused had lived together at different places and worked in factories. There was no abduction, she claimed.
She also told the HC that her father got her birth registered using a false date of birth — May 11, 2004 — in Rajasthan on May 29, 2020. She alleged that she was projected as a minor so police could act against her husband. She told the HC that she did not want to live in a women’s protection home and would continue to live with her husband.
After hearing her case, the high court stayed Adalaj police from taking any action against the petitioner’s husband. A reply has been sought from the police and the court further said, “Whether any proceedings need to be initiated against the complainant father or not, is an aspect which may be gone into by this court on the next date of hearing.”
Further hearing has been posted for August 18.
Similarly, in a separate case from Aravalli district, a person filed a habeas corpus petition for custody of his wife from her father, claiming that their marriage was registered on April 23, 2020 after the girl became an adult as she was born on March 3, 2002. However, his wife’s father insisted that she was born on June 26, 2003. The father placed a birth certificate issued by the Malpur gram panchayat in 2005.
As the petitioner challenged his wife’s birth certificate, the high court called the register and the talati came up with a register with torn pages. The district judge expressed inability to verify the certificate because the births and deaths register was in poor shape.
The HC got furious and observed that the talati-cum-mantri failed to maintain the register and discharge his statutory duty. The HC ordered the Aravalli DDO to conduct an inquiry into the improper maintenance of records and submit a report in court.