In India, vital civil registrations are executed under the Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969. The Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI) operates the centralized Civil Registration System (CRS) portal (crsorgi.gov.in), alongside major municipal corporation portals (such as MCD Delhi, BMC Mumbai, BBMP Bengaluru, and GCC Chennai), to issue digitally signed certificates.
Digitally signed Birth and Death Certificates are essential for critical life events and administrative milestones:
When a Municipal Medical Officer of Health or designated Registrar of Births & Deaths issues an electronic certificate, it is digitally signed using a secure cryptographic token (Class 3 DSC or e-Sign) issued by a licensed Certifying Authority (such as NIC CA or eMudhra).
When opened in regular PDF viewing applications or on smartphone screens, you will usually see a yellow question mark box stating:
"Validity Unknown โ The document has not been altered, but the certificate chain could not be verified."
This occurs because consumer operating systems (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS) do not come bundled with Indian municipal and CCA root certificates.
Verification officials at Regional Passport Offices (RPO) and insurance claim underwriting desks must strictly verify the authenticity of birth and death certificates. A certificate displaying an unverified signature or broken question mark can lead to:
Instant online verification. Free signature analysis ยท โน49 for permanent LTV green tick download.
Go to CRS Verifier โ