A married woman filed for divorce and had been staying separate from her husband for quite some time. The divorce was not settled and in the meantime, she fell in love with another man. However, after starting to reside separately from her husband, the woman had a physical relationship with another man and gave birth to a baby boy on July 10, 2020, before her divorce was finalized. However, at the time of her delivery, it was her husband who took her to a private hospital in CBD Belapur in Navi Mumbai and while recording their details, he gave his own name as the father of the woman’s child.
The hospital record resulted in the issuance of a birth certificate for the child, with the name of her husband as his biological father. After receipt of the birth certificate, the woman in December 2021 approached the NMMC and sought corrections in the birth certificate of her son and had her husband’s name replaced by the name of the child’s biological father.
The woman moved the judicial magistrate court in CBD Belapur after the civic body informed her that there was no legal provision for changing or correcting a birth certificate. She moved to the high court after the magistrate court rejected her plea on April 23 this year. She also filed an affidavit from the biological father of the child, supporting her.
Before the high court, her counsel, Dr. Uday Warunjikar, pointed out the Supreme Court ruling of 2015 holding that whenever a single parent or an unwed mother applies for a birth certificate, the only requirement should be that he or she furnish an affidavit to that effect and the corrected birth certificate must then be issued.
The division bench of justice Gautam Patel and justice Kamal Khata said the civic body could not deny issuing a corrected birth certificate, as the apex court judgment was binding on all and directed it to replace the name of the woman’s ex-husband by the name of the biological father of her son.
The court has asked the civic body to replace the name of the woman’s ex-husband with that of the woman’s lover. The woman had approached the court after the civic body refused to make the change. In her petition, the woman stated that she had married a man in March 2017 and happily lived with him until June 2018, when cracks appeared in their relationship and soon the spouses started residing separately. They eventually decided to go for divorce by mutual consent and got a divorce decree on February 8, 2021.
There are many couples living independently these days after separation because divorce is a long process. There are many marriages that are broken because the couple has a fallback option or loses interest in the spouse. Our society is not as rigid as it was; now people are less judgmental and more liberal. Breaking marriages and starting another relationship is very common in India. This change has its merits and side effects, too.
Women are financially independent and they are going out of their way to choose their lifestyle. They are no longer stuck with the norms. In the above case, the woman had all the liberties to conceive and deliver a child out of wedlock and the husband was also kind enough to escort his wife to the hospital and help her deliver the baby. Not only that, but he did not object to the name change of the child. In most divorce cases, once a couple makes up their mind to separate, they get into another relationship. It is no longer a time-consuming process.
On the other hand, many suffer withdrawal symptoms, go into depression, and suffer losses. The divorce brings uncertainty to their lives. Married people are on average happier than single people and much happier than divorced people. When you choose a life partner, you’re choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your habits, your lifestyle, and your travel companion.
Most marriages break down because of compatibility issues. In other words, people end up picking from whatever pool of options they have, no matter how poorly matched they might be to those candidates. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that outside of serious socialites, everyone looking for a life partner should be doing a lot of online dating, speed dating, and other systems created to broaden the candidate pool in an intelligent way. So, making choices becomes easy and when choices are available, the permanence of a relationship is always at stake.
