What’s in a name? Apparently a lot, especially when it appears on a birth certificate.

A young couple has been denied the birth certificate of their newborn son by the Nabadwip Municipality authorities because they did not affix a surname with his name in the application.

Nabadwip Municipality chairman Biman Krishna Saha has so far not been convinced by the couple’s claim that the government did not make the surname mandatory for a birth certificate.

The couple cited instances where certificates were issued without a child’s surname.

Saha, however, claimed the appeal was “unconventional” and advised the couple to submit a government circular to support their demand to skip their child’s surname, and appeal afresh.

The couple Pratap Chandra Das and Moushumi Debnath, who live at Sarkarpara in Nabadwip, claimed a surname automatically linked a person to “divisive identities” like caste and religion. “We do not practise either, and decided not to attach a surname to our son,” Pratap said.

On June 14, Moushumi delivered the baby boy in Nabadwip. On June 25, Pratap gave an application in the prescribed format for the birth certificate of his son — whom they named Anish Sankalpa — without a surname.

On June 26, he was told that the birth certificate could not be issued without a surname.

“Our point is simple. We want to bring up our son as a good human being, going beyond caste and religious identities as a mark of our protest against social divisions,” the father said.

He said municipality chairman Saha refused to entertain the request.

“I humbly reminded him (Saha) that no government agency can compel us to write anything associated with religion. But, he refused to listen and advised me to produce a legal reference or no-objection letter or any circular issued by an appropriate authority,” said Pratap, who also happens to be the secretary of the Nabadwip unit of Bharatiya Bigyan O Yuktibadi Samiti.

Pratap and Moushumi have claimed that the denial of a birth certificate for not writing a surname is a violation of Article 25 of the Indian Constitution which grants “freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion”.

Pratap has now decided to write a letter to the chairman asking him to name the legal provision under which he, as a father, was refused the baby’s birth certificate.

A lawyer practising at Calcutta High Court said the couple could rightly be issued a certificate without a surname for their son. “Mumbai High court in a case in September 2014 ruled that the government cannot force anyone to list his religion since a person can claim not to belong to any religion. The surname is associated with religion and can be avoided.”

Saha refused to budge. “I have never heard anything like this before. There is no format for such a certificate. I can issue it if the applicant brings a legal reference or an order from a suitable authority.”