The Madras High Court recently held that merely because the name varied in the baptism certificate from the “secular” official records, someone cannot be accused of falsifying the document and cancelled the FIR against a bishop accused of fabricating the baptism certificate for being consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of Kumbakonam. Justice R Vijayakumar noted that a birth certificate of the petitioner was issued in 2003 and on that basis the birth certificate was incorporated by way of amendment in the baptism register. “This incorporation, in law, cannot render the baptism certificate a fabricated document,” the court held on July 29. ‘Abuse of process of law’The high court observed that the difference between the church records and the secular official records had been there since the bishop’s childhood. Accordingly, the high court set aside the FIR and consequent proceedings.