Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has observed that dissolution of a marriage does not efface the parental status of the mother and father of a child, while allowing a man’s plea to have his name reflected in the school records of his minor son.
The court said when the man was alive, there was no justification for his ex-wife to remove the father’s name in the school admission form of their son and replace it with the name of her second husband.
It said while the woman has every right to have her name reflected in school records as the mother of the minor, that cannot authorise her to refuse the man’s right to have his name also entered in the documents as the child’s father.
Father’s name in records
“The dissolution of a marriage does not efface the parental status of the mother and father of the child born out of the said marriage,” Justice C Hari Shankar said.
The court said the prayer of the man to have his name reflected in the school record as the father of the child cannot be refused.
“In these circumstances, this court deems it appropriate, while allowing the prayer of the petitioner to have his name reflected in the record of (school) as the father of (child), to direct the school to reflect, alongside, the name of (woman) as his mother. The school is directed to take necessary corrective steps within a period of two weeks,” it said.
The court was deciding the man’s plea seeking a direction to the school to correct its records and reflect his name as the father of the child. The child was born in 2006 and was first admitted to a school in 2012. In the two schools where he studied till March 2016, the man’s name was recorded in the documents as the boy’s father.
