The Punjab and Haryana High Court has refused to allow the name of a minor’s biological father to be replaced by her mother’s second husband on her birth certificate, holding that a subsequent remarriage cannot alter the parentage recorded at the time of birth.
Government of Haryana and others, which dealt with a similar issue. The court held that a birth certificate is a statutory record of a child’s birth and parentage. The subsequent dissolution of the biological parents’ marriage or the remarriage of either parent does not, by itself, alter those facts.
The High Court relied on its earlier ruling in Pooja Goyal v.
The ruling distinguishes a child’s statutory birth record and subsequent changes in family circumstances, holding that remarriage alone cannot rewrite the parentage recorded at the time of birth. Because of subsequent developments in the family structure, the court made clear that parentage recorded at the time of birth cannot simply be changed.
