KOCHI: In a rare move, the Kerala High Court has directed authorities to include the father’s name in the birth certificate of a child born through In vitro fertilisation (IVF) in 2012. The order was issued after the couple sought the addition.
As per their petition, the husband donated the sperm used for the IVF treatment while the couple, working in Dubai, were living together. However, they could not marry due to opposition from the man’s family. The woman later decided to bear a child through IVF. The procedure was kept secret from their parents, the plea said.
The child, a girl, was born on November 14, 2012. However, owing to a misunderstanding between the couple at the time, the father’s name was left blank on her birth certificate. The couple later married and had a second child, whose birth certificate correctly records the father’s name. The Registrar of Births had denied their earlier request to add the name citing lack of provision to enable such a correction.
However, the court observed that a blank space in the birth register could wound more deeply than words. “I considered the psychological trauma of a child born to an unwed mother through the lens of ‘Karna’ in Mahabharata.
In this case, both parents want to declare to the world that the second petitioner is the child’s father, but the law does not permit it,” the court said.
Referring to the lines spoken by ‘Mr Bumble’ in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the court remarked that even now, some legal provisions in the country are “like an ass.”
But in such situations, it is the duty of courts to interpret laws with a human touch. “For a child, the blank space against father’s name in her birth certificate is a question mark on her legitimacy, a wound inflicted by her parents’ past quarrel. Now, the parents are healed. They approached the court not as adversaries but as loving parents. This court sits to ensure the law does not become the last instrument of psychological cruelty to a child who was never at fault,” the court said.