Correction of Birth & Death Records Lies Only With Registrar: Karnataka HC

The Karnataka High Court has held that correcting details in birth or death records is purely an administrative matter and not something that can be decided by a civil court. Such corrections must be handled by the Registrar under Section 15 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969.

The ruling came from Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum of the Dharwad Bench while hearing an appeal filed to correct the name of a deceased person’s mother in the death certificate.

The Court clarified that when a special law provides both the right and the remedy—along with the authority responsible—the civil court’s jurisdiction is automatically excluded. In this case, the appellant sought to correct his mother’s name and her marital status as recorded in official registers. The Court said these matters fall directly under the Registrar’s powers and cannot be decided through a civil suit.

The trial court had earlier dismissed the suit, noting that the appellant did not provide evidence from a competent hospital witness to prove that the name error was due to the hospital’s mistake. The respondents argued that the suit was barred under Section 9 of the Civil Procedure Code and Rule 7 of the Karnataka Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999.

Upholding this view, the High Court stated that Section 15 gives exclusive powers to the Registrar to investigate and correct such records, and civil courts cannot interfere. Since the matter was administrative in nature, the appeal was dismissed.

Case Title: Suhas L v. The Chief Registrar (Neutral Citation: 2025:KHC:27031)