‘Call me by my right name?’ How often we’ve heard it said? To many, names are a sensitive matter. They are particular about how their names are written or pronounced.
Geeta Patel is one such 50-year-old woman, fiercely proud of her name. Her birth certificate mentions her name as Baby. For Patel, it was an affront to her identity.
Her appeals to the talati, a revenue clerk, for an updated birth certificate bearing her right name went unreciprocated for four months.
Determined, he approached the High Court in February, seeking a directive that would formally recognise her as Geeta Patel.
A national daily reported that her advocate Rajan Patel explained that Geeta was not aware of the error in her birth certificate.
The lawyer reminded that Section 15 of the Birth and Death Registration Act grants registrars the authority to correct birth certificates after verifying the authenticity of the applicant’s claim.
