A State Level Policy Consultation on Making Father's name optional in all official documents is being called for. The said policy is gender specific, bias, and harms the long term best interest of children in India. It Does not solve a  documentation problem by permanently altering a child's legal identity.

A child should not be deprived of the identity or parentage of either known parent merely because the parents’ relationship has broken down. Legitimate exceptions may apply in cases of single parenthood, adoption, abandonment, sexual violence, genuine safety concerns, or where parentage is unknown. The State must not erase or render inaccessible the identity of a known parent from the child’s official records. A fit, able and willing parent should not be erased from the child’s life solely due to parental conflict or separation.

To,
The Government of Karnataka

The Law Minister of Karnataka  
The Government of Andhra Pradesh

The Law Minister Andhra Pradesh 

The Government of Telangana 

Ministry of Women & Child Development
Ministry of Law & Justice 

Department of Law & Parliamentary Affairs
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights
and all authorities concerned with child documentation and policy

CC: 

Karnataka State Judicial Academy

 

We are informed that  Children of India Foundation, SCPCR Karnataka, SCPCR Andhra Pradesh, SCPCR Telangana, are participating / holding a State Level Policy Consultation on “Making the father’s name optional in all official documents” on 7.10.2026 at Hotel Capitol, Rajbhavan Road, Bengaluru

We, the undersigned citizens, parents, grandparents, child-rights advocates, professionals and concerned members of society, respectfully call upon the Government and concerned authorities to reconsider any proposal or policy seeking to make the father's name optional in all official documents relating to children.

We fully recognise the genuine difficulties faced by single mothers, children born outside marriage, survivors of sexual violence, abandoned children, adopted children and families facing circumstances in which disclosure of a father's identity may be inappropriate or unsafe.

Those legitimate situations must be protected.

However, a policy of making a known father's identity universally optional across official records raises a fundamentally different question:

If the identity of a known father is made optional or omitted from official records, what happens when that child is trafficked, abducted, goes missing or is found without reliable family information? Every recorded link to a child’s identity matters. The documented identity of a known parent may become a vital link for tracing the child, establishing lineage and family identity, facilitating reunification, and securing the child’s protection. The State must therefore not create avoidable gaps in a child’s recorded parentage or, in the name of administrative choice, erase a known parent from the child’s official identity.

besides, Whose right is being protected—the adult's, or the child's?

A child is an independent rights-bearing individual.

A child's identity does not cease to include one parent merely because the parents are separated, divorced, unmarried or in conflict.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, National Charter of Children India 2003, Article 21 of Indian Constitution recognises a child's right, as far as possible, to know and be cared for by his or her parents and protects the child's identity, including name and family relations. 

 States parties are under obligation to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name, and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.

 Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.

Infact, European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has often held that, The mutual enjoyment by parent and child of each other’s company constitutes a fundamental element of family life within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention ie. Right to Family Life (even if the relationship between the parents has broken down), and domestic measures hindering such enjoyment amount to an interference with the right protected by Article 8 of the Convention (Monory v. Romania and Hungary, § 70; ZoricaJovanović v. Serbia, § 68; Kutzner v. Germany, § 58; Elsholz v. Germany [GC], § 43; K. and T. v. Finland [GC], § 151) Ónodi V. Hungary.

We therefore believe that a child's identity must not be reduced to the identity of only one parent.

Father involvement has also been associated in longitudinal and systematic research with positive developmental, cognitive, behavioural and psychological outcomes. This does not mean that every child requires a particular family structure, nor that a father's name on a document determines psychological wellbeing. It does, however, reinforce the importance of preserving meaningful parental identity and relationships wherever they are safe and in the child's best interests. 

Removing or routinely omitting a known parent's identity can also create long-term difficulties concerning:

the child's personal identity and family history; 
knowledge of biological and genetic lineage; 
family medical history; 
inheritance and succession; 
relationships with grandparents and extended family; 
verification of biological parentage; 
future legal and administrative requirements; 
and, importantly, the child's own right, upon attaining maturity, to understand his or her origins and family relationships. 
A parent should not disappear from a child's legal history because the relationship between adults has broken down.

At the same time, we recognise that there must be carefully designed exceptions where disclosure may endanger the child or parent—for example, cases involving sexual violence, abandonment, unknown parentage, adoption, serious safety concerns or judicially recognised circumstances.

The answer therefore is not compulsory disclosure in every document.

The answer is: PROTECT THE CHILD'S COMPLETE IDENTITY WHILE PROTECTING LEGITIMATE PRIVACY AND SAFETY.

India has already adopted flexible approaches in certain documents. Passport policy permits the use of the name of the father, mother or legal guardian in relevant circumstances, and UIDAI recognises that the mother's name may be recorded without requiring only the father's name. 

Therefore, instead of a blanket policy making the father's identity optional in all official documents, we urge the Government to develop a child-centred framework under which:

Our Demands

1. Preserve the child's complete parental identity in secure government records where parentage is known and legally established.

2. Do not make the identity of either parent automatically disappear merely because the parents are separated, divorced, unmarried or involved in a matrimonial dispute.

3. Provide confidentiality and restricted-access mechanisms in cases involving sexual violence, safety threats, abandonment, adoption or other circumstances where disclosure may harm the child or parent.

4. Ensure that omission from the face of a particular document does not amount to destruction or loss of the child's underlying parentage record.

5. Undertake an independent Child Impact Assessment before implementing any statewide policy affecting children's legal identity.

6. Consult child psychologists, developmental researchers, genetic/medical experts, family-law experts, child-rights organisations and, wherever appropriate, children themselves before finalising such a policy.

7. Publish the evidence, legal opinion and child-rights assessment relied upon for proposing such a major change.

8. Ensure that the policy is gender-neutral: the identity of neither mother nor father should be erased merely because one parent has custody or because the parents are in conflict.

9. Ensure that no policy or administrative framework results in the erasure, destruction or permanent loss of a child's known and legally established parental identity, while permitting appropriate privacy, confidentiality and restricted-access mechanisms in cases involving sexual violence, abandonment, or neglect.

10. Adopt a child-centred framework based on the principle of “privacy without erasure”, whereby a parent may be omitted from the face of a particular document where justified, without necessarily eliminating the child's underlying right to preserve and subsequently access information concerning his or her parentage and family identity, subject to law and appropriate safeguards;

11. Refrain from implementing any blanket rule affecting parental identity in official records until adequate safeguards are established to protect the child's best interests, identity and long-term rights.

12. Provide an opportunity for written representations and counter-submissions before any final recommendation is made, and publish a reasoned response to the material objections and evidence placed before the competent authority;

Thanking You,

For Have a Heart Foundation

(forum) and the undersigned

Manoj Gandhi

Jayesh Chande

Manish K.