Kerala High Court Allows Transgender Parents To Be Shown As 'Parents' Instead Of Father Or Mother, Says Law Must Evolve With Society

“…the law cannot remain static, but it has to evolve in accordance with the changes in the society and the life style of members of the Society.”

Zahhad, a transman had carried and gave birth to the child. The birth certificate marked the name of the father in the birth certificate as Ziya Paval (transgender) and mother as Zahad (transgender). They contended that since the gender identities given in the certificate is contrary to the gender status adopted by the parties, it can likely create some problems in the life of their child when it comes to his education, employment or other profession etc.

Justice Ziyad Rahman A. A. held that there is no need to take a hyper-technical stand in the case

“If a certificate sought by the petitioners, advances the welfare, interests and rights of the petitioners or the class/ category they fall in, particularly when their rights originate from the Articles of the Constitution of India, without offending any of the rights of the 3^rd parties and without doing violence to any statutory provisions, the court need not hesitate to step in and to issue appropriate direction to issue a certificate to the petitioners.”

Before approaching the Court, they had made a request to Kozhikode Corporation to change their description to parents. However, the corporation denied saying that the certification can be issued only in the prescribed format in Registration of Births and Death Rules, 1999.

The Court noted that in certain cases, it has to take a 'social justice adjudication' as opposed to an 'adversarial approach'. The Court said that the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 was framed keeping in mind the binary concept of gender and when there was no legal recognition to a third gender. Subsequently, transgenders were given recognition through the Supreme Court judgments in National Legal Service Authority v Union of India (2014) and subsequent enactment of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. The High Court said that the corresponding changes has not been made to the Registration of Births and Death Act, 1969 so as to uphold the rights, protection and identity of transgender person.

The Court however refused to read down the format of the birth certificate as mentioned in the 1999 Rules saying that this case was a 'rare and exceptional one' and the validity of the statute cannot be read down based on such a case.

The Court added that the entries made in the register maintained by the authorities need not be changed as the petitioner had not pressed for such a relief.

Counsel for the Petitioners: Advocate Padma Lakshmi, Prashant Padmanabhan, Meenakshi K. B., Mariyamma A. K., Ipsita Ojal, Pooja Unnikrishnan

Counsel for the Respondents: Advocates V. Krishna Menon, V. Manu (Special GP)

Case No: WP(C) 23763/ 2023

Case Title: Zahhad and Others v State of Kerala and Others

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Ker) 316