Members of a Parliamentary panel have raised "serious objections" to a Supreme Court order asking the Centre to place before it the amended Registration of Births and Deaths Act for scrutiny, saying the observations amounted to "encroachment upon legislative powers".
The Standing Committee on Law and Justice and Personnel in its report on Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Bill, 2012 presented to Parliament today said members felt that the apex court's observations were against the spirit of the Constitution.
The bill seeks to amend the 1969 Act to make registration of marriage of all citizens compulsory. The amendment is in pursuance of a Supreme Court judgement of February, 2006 in the Seema Vs Ashwani Kumar case.
The report of the committee quotes the Supreme Court order which said "... As and when the Central Government enacts a comprehensive statute, the same shall be placed before the Supreme Court for scrutiny."
The committee sought the opinion of the Attorney General on the issue last July who said "if it is felt that the legislation should not be placed before the court then either an interim application or an application for review should be filed stating out objection in this behalf."
The panel said the government could have filed a review petition "in the first instance".
But at the same time, the panel lauded the "noble objective" of the proposed legislation and hoped that it would act as a milestone to protect women in matters of maintenance and property rights in addition to putting an effective check on bigamist relationships.
