Create e-KYC to accurately identify deceased, Karnataka HC tells BBMP

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has urged the BBMP to collaborate with e-governance to create a system using e-KYC, akin to Aadhaar, to accurately identify a dead person.

The court mooted the idea to prevent errors during hospital data entry and the issuance of death certificates.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj said that authorities should digitise and credentialise birth and death certificates, allowing e-verification. He also stressed the need to integrate these certificates into the DigiLocker application, enabling third parties to easily verify their authenticity.

In the present case, Sai Lakshmi, a resident of Bagepalli town in Chikballapur district, approached the court after the BBMP rejected her application to correct her husband's death certificate.

Her husband, Lakshmi Kantha SP, a primary school assistant master at a government school in Bagepalli, passed away on November 22, 2022, at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology in Bengaluru. The petitioner filed an application for correction due to multiple errors in the certificate.

The BBMP said the system for it to cross verify the details does not exist as the hospital had made the entry. It also stated that correcting an already-issued death certificate is not possible without a court order.

On examining the provisions of the Karnataka Registration of Birth and Death Rule, 1999, Justice Govindaraj observed that Rule 11(1) mandates the registrar to investigate and correct clerical or formal errors reported in the register. If satisfied that an error exists, the registrar is obligated to rectify it by either correcting or cancelling the entry.

The court further added that treating hospital entries as sacrosanct, as done in the current case, may lead to anomalies and potential misuse.

“The issuance of the birth certificate or death certificate has several civil connotations in as much as without a birth certificate, a person cannot be said to be born, and without a death certificate, a person cannot be said to be dead in order to obtain legal remedies in relation thereto.

“Thus, even though a person may be actually dead, a certificate of death is required for the purpose of accessing the bank account, availing any benefit under a scheme propounded by the government, claiming insurance, etc.

“Thus, it would be of paramount importance that these certificates are issued in a proper and required manner so as to enable a citizen of the country to make use of the said certificates for any purpose that it may be required,” Justice Govindaraj said, directing the BBMP to issue a corrected, fresh death certificate to the petitioner within 20 days.

The case has been rescheduled for December 14, 2023, for the reporting of compliance with the directives given to the chief commissioner of the BBMP and the secretary of e-governance for the development of a system.