Being a Lawyer, I receive calls daily from clients with regard to court cases but since the time I became active online, I have been regularly receiving 5-7 calls daily from young couples with regard to query about registration of love marriage and that too without their parents consent. Since, I started receiving lot of phone calls and queries relating to the procedure of getting marriage registered I decided to post a blog which should be beneficial for couples who are interested to know about the love marriage registration procedure.
Interestingly, Love marriage is a term used primarily in South Asian countries, especially in India to describe a marriage where the individuals who love each other, get married with or without consent of their parents. In love marriage you choose your life partner and then either introduce him/her to their family. If they agree, they happily arrange your marriage. If they don’t agree then there are two possibilities;
i) Either you go against your parents and marry your lover or
ii) In the alternate, you respect your parents’ decision and decide not to marry your lover.
But in both situations, the major condition of marriage is that the boy should be above 21 years and girl should be above the age of 18 years. If both are adults they have full rights to take their own decision The quickest way to get married is to get it performed in any Arya Samaj Mandir or any Gurudwara, who will tell you what all is required for performance of marriage. Make sure that one gets the marriage recorded via video recordings and photography. This would help in establishing that a valid marriage has taken place.
Otherwise, there is another mode/way of getting marriage solemnized i.e. under Special Marriage Act. Despite loopholes, it is the best remedy for couples facing social and religious barriers, to get married and register it officially. All such marriages can take place between any two Indian citizens’ as well as one Indian citizen with a foreigner (Citizen/NRI) irrespective of their religion, caste or creed. Both the parties to the marriage have to file a joint application at any place wherein either of the parties resides, specifying; their age, place of residence, marital status, (if any party is a divorcee than in that eventuality the certified copy of Decree of Divorce granted by the Court should be attached) along with individual affidavit before the marriage officer in the office of District Collector. Along with this application, you have to furnish the proof of age (School certificate, Passport, Pan card etc),proof of residence (Passport, Ration card, Aadhar Card, Voter ID card etc) and the application of such marriage may be asked to be witnessed by independent persons along with one photograph of each witness.
On receiving such an application, the marriage officer issues a month’s notice regarding the intended marriage and get’s one such notice pasted on the notice board outside his office. In addition to the above the Officer can also ask to publish the same in newspaper column and a copy of notice is also sent at the individual parties address. After expiry of the period of notice a date is fixed on which all the person’s
parties to the marriage & witnesses have to appear again before the marriage officer who declares them married and issues a certificate in this regard declaring the individual as legally married couple.
In case the parties to marriage have threat of life from their family members then in those circumstances the couple can intimate the Superintendent or Commissioner of Police about the apprehended obstruction to their marriage and request for protection before the Court of Session judge which is generally granted by the court.
About The Author
Rajinder Sharma is in legal profession for the last 23 years and is based at Chandigarh(India). With an entrepreneurial bent of mind, he loves to explore new and innovative technology solutions in the field of law. He has also founded yessettle.com, an online dispute resolution platform.
