PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday directed the provincial government and the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to respond to a petition, which challenged the local government rules regarding registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorces by the village and neighbourhood councils.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed M Attique Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmad ordered the respondents, including the chief secretary, local government secretary and Nadra director general, to file their respective comments on the petition against the 90-day limitation for such registrations until April 3 and adjourned the hearing until then.

Petitioner Faheemullah, a resident of Nowshera, contended that the relevant rules of the KP Birth, Death, Nikkah, Divorce and Dissolution of Marriages (Registration and Verification) Rules, 2021, were not only illegal and a violation of the KP Local Government Act, 2013, but they also created problems for applicants.

He requested the court to strike down those rules.

Court seeks govt reply to petition

The petitioner also contended against the rules for imposing fee for issuance of certificates.

Advocate Shah Faisal Ilyas appeared for the petitioner and said his client had approached his village council for registration of the births of his sons aged seven and three respectively, but the council’s secretary refused to do so insisting that under the 2021 rules, those entries had to be made within 90 days of the births.

He said the father of the petitioner died in 1990 and recently he approached the council for issuance of his death certificate but it was denied by the secretary on the basis of the same 90-day restriction.

The lawyer said the petitioner got married in 2015 and as he required a marriage certificate for his wife’s CNIC, the secretary refused it saying the marriage should have been registered within 90 days under the rules.

He contended that the wife of the petitioner suffered from a serious health issue, so she urgently required the CNIC to avail herself of free medical treatment under the Sehat Sahulat Programme.

Mr Ilyas argued that in the relevant rules, a very cumbersome and time-consuming procedure had been given for registrations of a birth, death, marriage or divorce if the limitation period of 90 days had passed as the applicant had to move a civil court to get a decree of declaration.

He contended that those rules had been applied retrospectively to births and deaths, which took place much before the year 2021.

The counsel argued that the rules were always framed to facilitate people, so the rules in question should be in consonance with the main Act but they were framed in violation of the LG Act.

He contended that the LG Act, 2013, had no limitation for the issuance of those certificates, so the government had violated the law by imposing the 90 days restriction.

The lawyer said that those rules created problems not only for the people but also for the civil courts, which were already overburdened with thousands of cases.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2023