BENGALURU: The BBMP’s inhuman act of dilly-dallying in issuing death certificate to the wife of an
excavator operator who was washed away in heavy rain, while working in a stormwater drain, came to the fore with the Karnataka High Court extending a helping hand to his wife. The court directed the civic body to issue the death certificate.
The BBMP made her run from pillar to post for six years, rejecting her request for the death certificate, despite having disbursed Rs 10 lakh in compensation for his death in 2017. Unable to tolerate the hardship, Saraswathi SP, 27, moved the high court, challenging the rejection of her request for a death certificate. BBMP had expressed the apprehension that if the petitioner’s husband were to return alive, the death certificate would amount to a false certificate.
Rejecting the BBMP’s apprehension, Justice Suraj Govindaraj said it was a baseless contention and a living person cannot be deprived of the benefit of a death certificate because of such an apprehension. It appears the corporation is clutching at straws to try and justify its inaction, he added. Saraswathi’s husband was washed away in heavy rain on May 20, 2017, and BBMP had paid Rs 10 lakh compensation. A First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Mahalakshmipuram police station on March 27, 2018, with an endorsement that his body was not found. The woman then approached BBMP for the death certificate.
The BBMP contended that it has to follow the procedure prescribed in the Karnataka Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999, for issuing of certificates in Form No.4 for death occurring in hospital, and Form No.4A for death in other places. The victim’s wife countered it by pleading that she was unable to obtain a certificate since the body was not available for a doctor to examine. The court said that Form No.4 would not be applicable since the death had not occurred in hospital. But this is a peculiar case as the body was not found, hence insistence of Form 4A for issuing a certificate is illogical and unsustainable, causing grave injustice to the wife, the court observed.
“The petitioner is deprived of a death certificate for six years. The issuance of birth and death certificates has civil consequences, without a death certificate, the petitioner cannot take up activities which require a death certificate,” the court noted.