Court order needed to issue birth certificates for delayed

The Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine has informed the Madras High Court Bench here that birth certificates to 200 nomadic families living at residing at Chattaiyadi Colony in the district could not be issued without a specific court order to register their birth. The DPH made the submission before Justices Nooty Ramamohana Rao and S S Sundar hearing a PIL todirect the Madurai district Collector to frame a special scheme to enable the nomads to obtain birth certificates for their children without going through the hassle of obtaining individual court orders.
E Raman, a nomad, in his PIL submited that the colony, set up by one of the former Collectors of the district, had 220 families belonging to Chattaiyadi and Adhiyam Boom Boom Mattukarar communities.

Though the nomads were granted house sites and provided with financial assistance to construct houses, they did not take care to obtain birth certificates for their children until the schools insisted on production of it.
They were told that the certificates could be obtained only through First Class Judicial Magistrate court.
In a communication sent to Special Government Pleader A K Baskarapandian, the DPH said any birth or death should be registered at the place of occurrence with the jurisdictional Registrar.
Further, the Act imposed the responsibility of reporting such incidents on the head of the household concerned. Delayed registration could be done only through individual court orders, the DPH said.

The grievance of petitioner's community could be considered as a special case and bulk applications could be entertained if the High Court passes such an order. However, it has to be ensured that the birth of those children had not been registered already. The case had been posted for hearing next week.