BENGALURU: Directing the BBMP not to cause inconvenience to people by forcing them to approach courts for minor corrections in death certificates, the High Court of Karnataka asked it to come out with a system to verify the identity of the dead persons to issue error-free death certificates. The court stressed the need for birth and death certificates to be credentialed and digitised to enable e-verification. This helps authorities verify the genuineness of such certificates.
Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the order on a petition filed by Sai Lakshmi against an endorsement issued on January 23, 2023, by the BBMP stating that no corrections can be made to the details entered by the hospital using the government website (ejanma.com) unless an order from the jurisdictional court is obtained.
Directing the BBMP to issue a fresh death certificate by considering the documents submitted by the petitioner, the court noted that the demand by the medical officer of the BBMP that an order of the jurisdictional court is required is not justifiable.
Lakshmi is the wife of late Lakshmi Kantha SP, who was a primary school assistant master at the government school in Bagepalli, Chikkaballapura district. He died on Jan 22, 2022, at Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology.
Several discrepancies were found in his death certificate issued by the BBMP. Hence, the petitioner submitted an application for correction enclosing the original medical certificate, family certificate, Aadhar, voter ID, etc.