Legal documents of a person in India, are as important as the person himself. This is because the documents are issued by the State, that is, by the Government of India and therefore carry the authenticity of the government. The name of a person is a category of information that universally needs to be filled in for all legal documents, without any exception. Resultantly, name change is an important aspect that naturally flows from this. A lot of people therefore find it very difficult, and stress about how to change their names in legal documents.
This blog aims to highlight the importance of having correctly mentioned names in all essential legal documents and also tries to state in brief at the end, the process of application for a name change.
The identity of a person and its verification has become a very important issue, especially in today’s times when privacy related matters are being discussed by almost every person engaged in the legal profession.
Firstly, the name of a person on a legal document is reflective of the genuineness of the person for many legal affairs. Some examples of such essential legal documents are voter Id card, aadhar card, passport, birth certificate, domicile certificate, PAN card, Marriage certificate etc. These are some documents which every person should possess by default. Other than these, there are some documents which some people may contain based on particular or unique circumstances in their own respective lives. Some examples of such documents are that of disability certificate, caste certificate, freedom fighter certificate etc.
These certificates are proof of certain special conditions associated with these persons, thus enabling them to avail of the benefits that have been allocated for them by the government and other policy making bodies in the schemes designated for them.
A caste certificate shall enable a candidate to avail of reservations made for them in educational institutions and competitive exams. Adults and professionals can avail of reservations in job vacancies based on their caste or minority basis.
Lastly, and most importantly, a person shall be able to exercise his right of voting, only if the name mentioned on the voter Id card matches with the electoral list with the person responsible for that voting booth.
As daunting as it might seem, the process name change is not that complicated. All that one needs to keep in mind, is that he or she should give out a declaration of the name change containing details of both the previous name as well as the new name, the reason for the name change etc. in a local daily newspaper of vernacular language. The local municipality needs to be informed and an applications needs to be presented in this regard. Once all the legal formalities are done, the party must ensure that all essential legal documents of the kind mentioned above must contain the correct spelling of their new names lest they shall have to suffer many difficulties as have been described aptly in the above paragraphs.
