Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, 1886

This is an 1886 colonial-era law that set up a system for voluntarily registering births and deaths among certain classes of people, and for keeping central copies of marriage registers from two other laws -- the Christian Marriage Act, 1872 and the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act (now the 1936 version). Section 6 requires each Provincial Government to establish a General Registry Office to hold certified copies of these birth, death and marriage records, headed by an officer called the Registrar General.

Chapter III sets out how registration actually works: Section 11 defines whose births and deaths can be registered under the Act, Sections 12-13 let Provincial Governments appoint local Registrars (and the Federal Government appoint them for Acceding States), and Section 14 makes a Registrar a public servant. Sections 19-23 cover the mechanics -- who is authorised to notify a Registrar of a birth or death, that the notice must be signed, and that a certificate of registration is issued once recorded. Section 27 makes it an offence to wilfully give false information when registering a birth or death, though the extract available here does not state what the penalty actually is. Section 28 allows correction of errors in the register.

Chapter V (Sections 32-35) deals with a special, now largely historical, situation: it let people holding older, informally-kept birth/death/marriage registers hand them over to the Registrar General within a set period, and set up Commissioners to examine and authenticate these old registers so that copies could be used as evidence in court.

Rule-making power sits with the Provincial Governments (and the Federal Government for Acceding States) under Section 36, covering things like fees, prescribed forms, time limits for giving notice, and how Registrars may correct entries.

This Act is very old, has been repealed for Islamabad Capital Territory, and has been amended repeatedly since 1886 (through Adaptation Orders in 1937, 1949 and 1961, and later Federal Adaptation Orders). Its practical role today has largely been superseded by more modern civil registration systems (such as NADRA's birth/death registration), so anyone needing current birth or death registration procedures should not rely on this Act's original 1886 mechanics without checking what registration law actually governs in their area now.