Marriage under Spl Act not void if residence clause not met: HC

Swati Deshpande / Mar 2, 2025, 00:35 IST

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Marriage under Spl Act not void if residence clause not met: HC

Mumbai: The Bombay high court ruled that a marriage under the Special Marriage Act is not automatically extinguished if one of the parties did not continuously reside in the district for at least 30 days before filing their wedding application at the local registrar's office. This ruling came as a relief to a woman whose visa application to join her husband in Germany was rejected by its embassy. The reason for the rejection was that the couple flouted the mandatory prior 30-day residence requirement in the district where the marriage registration application and one-month notice were filed.
The couple approached HC after the Jan 8 rejection of the woman's visa plea on the grounds that her marriage certificate dated Nov 23, 2023 was invalid and void due to non-compliance with a Section 5 residence requirement. Both husband and wife were residing abroad in different countries, Prague (Czech Republic) and London (UK), when they applied for marriage registration in India in Oct 2023. They arrived in India on Nov 5, 2023, and married on Nov 23.
After the visa rejection, the couple applied before a marriage officer in Maharashtra for cancellation of the ‘void' certificate. On Feb 3 this year, the officer rejected their plea. The couple, through advocate P D Jain, petitioned HC for directions that authorities issue her a "corrected marriage certificate" since she was residing in India since Oct 2024.
A division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Advait Sethna, after also hearing advocates Hrishikesh Nabar and Gargi Warunjikar for the Centre, stated the woman's contention based on the visa rejection that her marriage certificate was illegal or void is unacceptable. The HC, after analysing the Act, said, "In our clear opinion, any irregularity in one of the parties to the marriage not residing for a continuous period of 30 days cannot in any manner result in the solemnity of the marriage between the parties as reflected in the marriage certificate and the marriage as registered by the Registrar of Marriages under the Special Marriage Act being extinguished." The HC added, "On such irregularity, the marriage cannot be rendered or labelled to be a void marriage, for the reason that the categories of void marriages are set out in Section 24 of the Special Marriage Act, the attention to which has completely been missed by the petitioner, which also ought to have been pointed out to the German Embassy."

The HC clarified, "Once a marriage certificate was issued to the parties under the Special Marriage Act, it is conclusive evidence of the legality and solemnity of the marriage until it is set aside for any valid reason by an appropriate authority or by the court of law."

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About the Author

Swati Deshpande

Swati Deshpande is Senior editor at The Times of India, Mumbai, where she has been covering courts for over a decade. She is passionate about law and works towards enlightening people about their statutory, legal and fundamental rights. She makes it her job to decipher for the public the truth, be it in an intricate civil dispute or in a gruesome criminal case.

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