State to make new law to stop misuse of name change

Panaji: In the backdrop of allegations of misuse of name change, law minister Nilesh Cabral on Thursday said the state government will come up with a new law making it mandatory for a person to get a no objection certificate (NOC) from the sub-registrar’s office, specifying the purpose behind the change in name, before publishing it in the newspapers.
“We want to know for what purpose they want to change the name. It is for this purpose, we are in the process of getting a new law and it is being examined by the (law) department,” he said.
In the past couple of years, the state has seen many changes in name notices in newspapers and most of them were from non-Goans.
Publication of change in names in newspapers raised suspicion of misuse and the matter was also discussed in the assembly in 2019. It was also alleged that names were being changed for the purpose of ancestral property matters or for some other motive.
Cabral himself had asked the DGP last year to inquire into publications of these advertisements.
“The Change of Name Act was passed in 1990 by the central government. No name is changed in the original birth certificate, but the sub-registrar’s office provides Form B, which is attached to the original birth certificate,” Cabral said.
He said all the change in name notices issued in newspapers are not with the registration department. “All the change in name notices that appear in newspapers are not for change in the actual name. People are changing their names for various purposes,” Cabral said.
Referring to streamlining of marriage registrations, he said: “We have started online marriage registration to avoid fraud and to avoid duplication.”
Responding to Congress allegation that same marriages were being registered at different sub-registrar offices, Cabral said he would order a detailed inquiry into registration of marriages in different talukas.
Reacting to the Congress allegation that a sub-registrar’s office takes money for executing registration of marriages, Cabral said if we start an inquiry before registration of marriage, then people will blame us for creating hurdles. “The person who has sworn in the affidavit for two marriages has committed fraud and not the sub-registrar’s office,” he said.