In India, a religious marriage ceremony is regarded as a valid union. However, obtaining a formal registration certificate will demonstrate your marriage’s legality to a judge. Your ability to obtain a visa will be aided by having your marriage legally registered, for which the Registrar of Marriages must provide you a formal registration certificate.
How Does an Unregistered Marriage Affect Things?
Table of Contents
Marriage registration is a crucial change because without it, women risk becoming nothing more than feudal victims. It denies women legal protection and social acceptance. The requirements for a legitimate marriage will be met if marriages are required to be registered. Without mandatory registration, women are tricked into being married without meeting the requirements of a legal union.
Since its creation, the commission on the mandatory registration of weddings in India has backed the necessity of registration. The committee implemented this change to protect women and shield them from harmful behaviours like:
- To enforce the minimum marriage age and to prevent child marriage unless it is authorised by a law or tradition, polygamy is prohibited.
- To guarantee that a woman receiving a notification of an impending marriage does so
- Enable married women, including those who are married to NRIs or foreigners, to assert their entitlement to food, housing, and maintenance. This includes acting as a deterrent to the practise of selling children to anybody (foreigner) under the guise of marriage.
2005’s Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act
Since there is no legal requirement for marriage registration in India, the Central Government must make arrangements to record all weddings, whether they occurred inside their States, Union Territories, or elsewhere. Therefore, in order to protect women from harassment, all weddings, regardless of their structure, should be recorded. Women are impacted by unregistered marriages and become bigamous partners as a result. Without a marriage certificate, a couple may not have legal proof of their marriage, which leads to property problems.
Due to these occurrences, the Central Government of India mandated that all States pass laws requiring mandatory marriage registration and birth registration. According to the criterion that States should have a better awareness of the local circumstances and social structure in their own states, this was proposed.
Legal Advice for India’s Marriage Registration
The Compulsory Registration of Marriage Bill, 2005, Section 12 states as follows:
Every marriage that is performed in the nation under any law or custom regulating such weddings, whether solemnised or negotiated between Indian citizens or in circumstances where at least one is an Indian citizen, must be compulsorily registered with the relevant Registrar of Marriages.
Both partners in a marriage should be responsible for taking all necessary actions to register their union.
The parties to a marriage must create and sign a Memorandum of Marriage in accordance with Schedule A, and they must also give it personally, in triplicate, to the Registrar within 30 days of the marriage date. This is covered in further detail in Section 13 of the Bill. A penalty of two rupees will be charged for each day that a memo is submitted after the allotted 30 days. The Memorandum must provide a convincing justification for the delay, and the Registrar has the right to charge a late fee.
Must Read Topics:
