Advocates oppose amendments to Births and Deaths Registration Rules

Advocates from Mangaluru and other parts of Dakshina Kannada on Thursday staged a symbolic protest on the premises of courts to oppose amendments to Karnataka Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Rules.

In a statement here, Mangalore Bar Association president K. Prithviraj said that the State government has amended Rule 9(3) of the Rules to withdraw from Judicial Magistrate First Class the power of registration of births and deaths and transfer it to Assistant Commissioner or the Sub-Divisional Magistrate.

By such an arbitrary decision, the State government has denied the common man a faster and simple process of registration of births and deaths after one year of occurrence of the incident.

The Assistant Commissioner, he said, is already burdened with cases related to land revenue and other enactments. Applications for registration of births and deaths will only add to his burden and it will take a long time for these applications to be disposed of.

“The new arrangement will give fresh impetus for further corruption and delay (at the offices of Assistant Commissioners),” he said.

Mr. Rai said that junior advocates were handling these applications filed before the Magistrate courts. By amending the rule, the government has snatched the valuable professional work from junior advocates.

Association secretary Sridhar Yenmakaje told reporters that the Chief Secretary failed to respond to the letter written by the association seeking abrogation of the amendment. As the government failed to respond, advocates carried out a protest across the district, he said.