Parliament passed the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which mandates that births or deaths reported more than two years late must be verified by a judicial magistrate.
The legislation amends section 13(3) of the 1969 Act, shifting oversight for long-delayed registrations from executive magistrates to judicial magistrates of the first class appointed by the high court.
Introduced by Home Minister Amit Shah on July 24, the law aims to increase stringency in reporting, following a 2024 report that recorded 25.47 million births and 8.94 million deaths.