“Getting a marriage registered under the Special Marriage Act involves elaborate procedures, including issuance of a notice that would be pasted outside the Sub-Registrar’s office for about 30 days inviting objections, if any, to the registration of the marriage. Only thereafter, the Sub-Registrar would register the marriage and issue the certificates.
“In order to avoid these elaborate procedures and to get their illegal marriages registered on the spot, some individuals were getting them registered under the 2009 enactment, and it is surprising that the Sub-Registrars were also encouraging the practice. The TNRMA could be invoked only if the couple belonged to the same religion and not otherwise,” Mr.Raghavan added.
He also recalled that the TNRMA was enacted pursuant to a 2006 Supreme Court judgement which stressed the necessity to get all marriages in the country registered in order to avoid marital disputes.
A senior official of the Registration Department conceded that some Sub-Registrars were registering inter-religious marriages under the TNRMA since the department was yet to issue a circular clarifying the legal position on the issue.
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