AHMEDABAD: A clerical entry made nearly three decades ago triggered a 13-year legal battle for a childless Ahmedabad couple after they found municipal records listing their nephew as their biological son.The husband and wife discovered the discrepancy during a visit to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s Birth and Death Department on Sep 21, 2012. The birth record showed them as the parents of the boy, now 30, even though the couple said they never had a child.The couple later established that the boy is the biological son of the the man’s elder brother and his wife. The couple maintained that their names were entered as the child’s parents at the time of registration without their knowledge or consent.The dispute soon moved beyond paperwork into allegations of a property grab. The couple told the court the false entry was made with a “mala fide intention” to claim their property because they had no heirs. Their filings also said the man’s elder brother and sister-in-law had pressed him to adopt the boy but when they efused, the disagreement escalated into a family conflict.In 2013, the couple filed an FIR at Shaherkotda police station and approached the city civil court, seeking a declaration that the boy was not their son and that the birth record was incorrect.Court records show that at one stage both sides, along with seven witnesses, signed documents acknowledging that the elder brother had wrongly entered the couple’s names and had assured the mistake would be corrected. The correction did not happen.During the trial, the couple produced documentary evidence supporting their claim. The biological parents did not file a written statement, a lapse the court treated as significant. The court accepted the plaintiffs’ contention that the entry was made dishonestly to usurp property.In a recent order, chamber judge P N Navin ordered that the present suit succeeded and it is hereby declared that the names shown as father and mother of the son of the defendants were illegally entered as the boy is not the son of the present plaintiffs.
