Home›FAQs
❓ All Questions Answered
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Arya Samaj Court Marriage Delhi answered in detail. Legal, Process, Fees, Documents, NRI, Love Marriage topics.
Common questions about Arya Samaj Court Marriage Delhi answered in detail. Legal, Process, Fees, Documents, NRI, Love Marriage topics.
These are the eight questions that come up in the first two minutes of almost every call we take. They are here at the top because a surprising number of couples spend weeks worrying about one of them, and the answer takes a sentence.
A note on how this page is written. Most FAQ pages on marriage websites answer in five words and leave you no better off. We have tried to answer properly, including where the honest answer is "that depends" or "no, and here is why nobody can". Where a question deserves a whole page, there is a link to it. If your question is not here, ring the number at the bottom — that conversation is free and we do not use it to sell you a bigger package.
Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act lists five conditions and no more: no living spouse, capacity to give valid consent, the groom twenty-one and the bride eighteen, not within the prohibited degrees, and not sapindas of each other. That is the complete list, and we check every couple against it before taking any money.
What is not on the list is worth saying out loud, because so many couples arrive apologetic about one of them: caste, sub-caste, gotra, community, village, income, education, the agreement of horoscopes, the approval of a panchayat, and the consent of parents. None of these is a legal condition of marriage in India, and no office is entitled to demand them.
Almost every unhappy conversation in this trade begins with a promise about speed. So here is the shape of it: the ceremony is fast, registration depends on an office, and the Special Marriage Act has a statutory wait that nothing and nobody can shorten.
The thirty-day notice under the Special Marriage Act is not a queue, a backlog, or an administrative habit. It is Section 6 and Section 7 of the Act: the Marriage Officer enters your notice in the Marriage Notice Book, affixes a copy in a conspicuous place in his office, and where a party is permanently resident elsewhere, sends a copy to that district for display there. Thirty days must pass for objections. There is no fee, no contact and no emergency that changes this.
This section exists because witnesses are the question we are asked most often and the one where our answer disappoints roughly one caller in three.
A witness signs a document stating that he was personally present at your marriage and knows who you are. That is a statement of fact, and a stranger arranged by an agent cannot honestly make it. What paid witnesses produce is a marriage with a defect sitting dormant inside it — until a succession dispute, a maintenance case, or a consulate that telephones the witness named on your certificate and finds a man who has never heard of you.
Our prices are published, they are the same for everybody, and they do not move because of your caste, your religion, your urgency, or how worried you sounded on the phone. The full breakdown, including five worked total-cost examples, is on the fees page.
Before you pay anybody in this trade — us included — ask three questions: what is the total, what is not included, and which government fees are extra. An honest service answers all three in under a minute, in writing if you want it. Vagueness on any of them is itself the answer.
A large share of the people who ring this number are not asking a legal question. They are asking whether they will be safe. We would rather be concrete than reassuring, so this section says what usually happens and what actually helps.
In Delhi and the districts around it, the most common family response to a marriage they oppose is not violence. It is a complaint at a police station — framed as a missing person, a kidnapping, an age allegation, or a theft of jewellery. Three of those four do not stand where two adults married by choice with correct documents. The fourth, the age allegation, is decided on documents, which is exactly why we check ages before we discuss anything else.
The certificate is the beginning of a short administrative list, and the order you do it in decides whether it takes a fortnight or three months.
The order that works: marriage certificate first, because everything else asks for it; then a name change if there is one; then Aadhaar, then PAN, then bank accounts, then passport, then insurance nominations, employer records, provident fund, driving licence and voter ID. Passport last of that group, because it is the strictest and the most likely to reject an application where documents disagree with one another.
A very large share of our registration work is for people who married long ago and are now facing a bank, a pension office, a hospital or a visa application that wants proof. The good news is that the door is open. The one piece of bad news is absolute, and it is at the end of this paragraph: registration remains possible however long ago the marriage took place, as long as both spouses are alive — but once a spouse has died, the marriage can never be registered.
The three jobs people confuse with each other — a duplicate, a correction, and a name change — are separate, and they differ in price and in how long they take. The full detail is on the marriage certificate page.
A nikah and its registration are two separate steps, and the confusion between them mirrors exactly the confusion Hindu couples have between the mandir certificate and the government certificate. The nikahnama records the nikah. The government certificate is what an institution acts on.
A short section, and the most useful one on the page. Every item here is something we are asked for regularly and refuse every time. If you are comparing services, these are the questions to put to whoever else you are speaking to — the answers will tell you a great deal.
These are not straw men. Every one of them has been said to us, in earnest, by somebody who had been told it by a relative, a neighbour, or another marriage service. Correcting them is most of what a first conversation consists of.
"Court marriage means going to a court and standing before a judge." No court marries anybody and no judge is involved. "Court marriage" is everyday shorthand for a civil marriage under the Special Marriage Act, or for registration of a marriage with the SDM. The word court in the phrase is a habit, not a place you will visit.
"The certificate is what makes you married." The ceremony makes you married. Under Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act the marriage is complete and binding at the seventh step of saptapadi, and the Supreme Court held in 2024 that a certificate proves nothing where no ceremony took place. The certificate proves the marriage; it does not perform it.
"The mandir certificate is the government certificate." It is not, and this single confusion costs couples more than anything else on this page. Institutions want the SDM certificate.
"If we are not registered, we are not really married." Also wrong, in the opposite direction. An unregistered marriage is a valid marriage. It is simply a marriage you will have to prove with evidence and argument rather than with a document, at a moment when you would much rather have the document.
"A good agent can get the thirty-day notice reduced." Nobody can. It is in the statute. Every rupee paid for this buys nothing or a forgery.
"Inter-caste marriage needs special permission." Caste appears nowhere in the Hindu Marriage Act. There is no permission to seek, no certificate to produce, and no extra fee to pay.
"Same-gotra marriage is illegal." Gotra is not mentioned in the Act. What the Act bars is prohibited degrees and sapinda relationship, which are defined by counting actual generations, not by a shared clan name.
"Our parents can have the marriage cancelled." A valid marriage can be dissolved only by a competent court in a proceeding to which both spouses are parties. Parents are not parties, a panchayat is not a court, and disapproval is not a ground.
"We are from Noida, so Delhi rules apply because it is all NCR." Registration runs on state law. Noida and Ghaziabad are Uttar Pradesh; Gurugram and Faridabad are Haryana. Different Acts, different portals, different fees. A Delhi office cannot take a Special Marriage Act notice on a Noida address.
"A ten-year separation is as good as a divorce." It is not. Only a decree ends a marriage, and a second marriage during a subsisting first one is void and an offence.
"We can register later, there is no hurry." There is no deadline while both spouses are alive, which is true and reassuring — but the moment a spouse dies, registration becomes permanently impossible. Couples who put it off for thirty years sometimes find that out at the worst possible time.
"Buying the most expensive package is the safest choice." It is not. The ₹56,000 Premium is right for couples facing real threats and wrong for everyone else, and courts have themselves criticised protection petitions filed with no genuine threat. Paying more does not buy more safety; it buys a petition you did not need.
You will meet these words on this website, at an office, and in whatever a relative forwards you. Here is what each actually means, in one or two sentences.
Solemnisation. The performing of the marriage itself — the ceremony, or in a civil marriage the signing of the declaration before the Marriage Officer. It is the act that creates the marriage, as distinct from registering it afterwards.
Saptapadi. The seven steps taken together around the sacred fire in a Vedic ceremony. Where the customary rites include it, the marriage becomes complete and binding at the seventh step. That is the legal moment you became married.
Havan. The sacred fire, and the offerings made into it, around which the Vedic rites are conducted.
Prohibited degrees of relationship. A list in Section 3 of the Hindu Marriage Act of relationships too close for marriage — lineal ascendants and descendants, a brother's widow, an uncle and niece, children of two brothers, and so on. A marriage within them is void unless a custom governing one party permits it.
Sapinda. A relationship defined by counting generations — three upwards through the mother and five through the father, counting the person as the first. Two sapindas may not marry, again unless a custom permits it.
Gotra. A lineage marker used in some Hindu communities. It carries social weight in parts of north India and no legal weight at all under the Hindu Marriage Act.
Notice of intended marriage. The written notice given to the Marriage Officer under the Special Marriage Act, entered in the Marriage Notice Book and publicly displayed for thirty days, with a copy sent to each party's permanent-residence district.
Marriage Officer. The officer appointed under the Special Marriage Act who receives the notice, decides any objection, solemnises the marriage and enters the certificate. Not a judge.
SDM. Sub-Divisional Magistrate — the officer with whom a marriage is registered in Delhi under the Hindu Marriage Act, and whose office issues the government certificate.
e-District. The Delhi government's online portal through which registration applications are filed and appointments allotted. Haryana and Uttar Pradesh run their own separate portals.
Marriage register and entry number. The book in which a marriage is recorded, and the number of your entry in it. If you lose your certificate, an attested extract from the register quoting that number is the strongest proof you can produce. Write the number down.
Void and voidable. A void marriage is treated in law as never having been a valid marriage at all — for example one where a spouse from an earlier marriage was still living. A voidable marriage is valid until a court sets it aside at the instance of one party, for example where consent was obtained by force or fraud.
Decree. The formal order of a court that ends or annuls a marriage. A decree of divorce ends a valid marriage; a decree of nullity declares one void or annuls a voidable one. An order sheet, a petition copy or a settlement on stamp paper is none of these.
Affidavit. A written statement sworn on oath before an authorised person. What it says becomes what your certificate says, which is why you should read it before signing.
Streedhan. Property given to a woman at or around her marriage, which is hers. A useful legal concept, and a poor reason to carry disputed jewellery out of a house on the day you leave it.
Writ petition. A petition to a High Court or the Supreme Court seeking a direction, for example the protection petition a married couple facing threats may file.
Quashing petition. A petition asking the High Court to set aside criminal proceedings — the remedy where a family has procured an FIR that does not stand.
Habeas corpus. Literally a direction to produce a person before the court. Parents sometimes use it to try to have an adult daughter brought back; the Supreme Court has made clear it cannot be used to hand an adult woman to her parents against her wishes.
Apostille. A certification affixed by the Ministry of External Affairs that makes an Indian public document acceptable in countries party to the Hague Convention. It goes on the original, and the chain before and after it is sequential.
Attestation. Further certification by the embassy of the destination country, required by some countries on top of the apostille and not by others.
Nikahnama. The written record of a nikah, signed by the parties and the witnesses, recording the mehr. It proves the nikah; it is not the government certificate.
Mehr. The amount or property settled on the bride in a Muslim marriage, agreed and recorded at the nikah.
Shuddhi. The Arya Samaj rite of conversion to the Hindu fold. Legally recognised, historically significant, and never something to undertake merely as a paperwork shortcut — particularly given the conversion laws now in force in several states.
Tatkal. Priority handling. In this field it means the steps that can be prioritised are prioritised. It does not and cannot mean a shortened statutory notice.
This page now runs to well over a hundred answers and it still will not cover every situation, because the situations people arrive with are genuinely varied — a decree from a court in another state, a passport in a maiden name, a wedding in 1994 nobody wrote down, a visa interview in eleven days, a family that has started making phone calls.
Ring +91 8376863962 and describe it. Tell us your ages, your religions, whether either of you has been married before, which documents you actually hold, where each of you actually lives, and any date that is already fixed. Ten minutes usually settles the whole plan — which route, what it costs, how long it takes, and what could go wrong in your particular case.
The call is free, we answer in Hindi or English, and if the honest answer is that you need less than you thought, that is the answer you will get.
Everything above this point is answered in a line or two. This section, and the four that follow it, answer the same subjects properly — because "how does SDM registration actually work" is not a one-line question, and every couple who gets it wrong loses a morning or a fortnight to something that was written down all along.
The figures here come from the Delhi Revenue Department's own marriage-registration page and from the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014. Where the two differ, or where an office works to a different current schedule, ask at the counter and ask for the receipt — and whatever the office charges is what you pay. We keep no part of any government fee.
The Sub-Divisional Magistrate is a revenue officer of the Delhi government, and in a marriage he wears one of two hats depending on which Act you are on.
Under the Hindu Marriage Act he is the Registrar: your marriage has already happened — at a mandir, at home, in your village — and he records it in a government register. He does not marry you and he does not judge whether the ceremony was pretty. He checks that the parties are who they say they are, that they were eligible, and that a marriage was in fact solemnised.
Under the Special Marriage Act he acts as the Marriage Officer: there the marriage itself happens in front of him, after the thirty-day notice, and he solemnises as well as registers.
Under the 2014 Order, the SDM is not the only officer who can do this — the Order gives concurrent jurisdiction to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, the Additional District Magistrate and the District Magistrate. In practice your application goes to the SDM your address falls under, and the ADM or DM appear only where the Order gives them a specific power, such as remitting a penalty.
The Revenue Department's own instruction is that the application goes "to the office of Sub-Divisional Magistrate in whose jurisdiction any of the husband or wife resides" — note any, which means either spouse's residence opens the door, not both.
Delhi's own separate rule adds a second route for Hindu Marriage Act registration: the marriage may be registered where it was solemnised as well as where a party resides. That second limb is what rescues couples who cannot prove a Delhi address at all — if the ceremony happened at a Delhi mandir, that is a basis.
Which physical office your address falls under is decided by the e-District portal from your exact address, and since the reorganisation of 1 January 2026 Delhi has thirteen districts and thirty-nine sub-divisions. Two addresses two hundred metres apart can land in different sub-divisions, which is why no website — including this one — can honestly print one office name against a whole colony.
Yes, and it is the number most couples have never heard. Under Order 4(a) of the 2014 Order, the marriage is to be reported for registration within sixty days, excluding the day on which the final ceremony of marriage is solemnised.
Miss it and nothing catastrophic happens — but the Order has its own machinery for it. Order 6 allows the marriage officer to condone a delay of up to a further sixty days on payment of an additional fee of five hundred rupees. Order 7 provides a penalty of one thousand rupees for non-registration, which the Additional District Magistrate or District Magistrate may remit.
Two things follow, and both matter. First, the amount does not grow year by year — a marriage from 2009 and a marriage from last year face the same structure, so the fee is never the reason to keep postponing. Second, a delayed registration is still a registration. Couples who assume they have "missed the chance" and stop are the ones we meet twenty years later with a real problem.
Far less than people expect, and this is the single most useful thing on this page.
| Item | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Registration under the Hindu Marriage Act | ₹100, deposited with the Marriage Clerk | Delhi Revenue Department's marriage-registration page |
| Requisite fee under the 2014 Order | ₹200 | Order 4(b) |
| Solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act | ₹15, deposited with the cashier of the District | Delhi Revenue Department's marriage-registration page |
| Condonation of delay (up to a further 60 days) | ₹500 additional fee | Order 6 |
| Penalty for non-registration | ₹1,000, remittable by the ADM or DM | Order 7 |
| Notary attestation of an affidavit | ₹100–₹200 per affidavit | ordinary market rate, not a government fee |
So the government's own side of this is in tens and hundreds of rupees, not thousands. Read that sentence twice, because it is the sentence that protects you. If anybody — an agent, a tout outside a court complex, a "contact" who knows someone — tells you the office needs thousands to "process", "move" or "clear" your file, ask two questions: which rule requires it, and can I have a receipt. Almost every one of those conversations ends there.
What legitimately costs more is service — drafting, checking, filing, attending, following up, and fixing whatever the file throws up. That is what our published fees on the fees page are for, and they are the same for everyone.
The Revenue Department states the department's own service norms plainly: under the Hindu Marriage Act the matter is dealt with "normally within 15 days", and under the Special Marriage Act "normally within 60 days" — the longer figure being unsurprising, because the SMA has a thirty-day notice inside it before anything else can happen.
"Normally" is doing real work in both sentences. The appointment date itself is allotted by the office's load and nobody can promise you a date in advance; anyone who does is guessing, and the guess is free for them and expensive for you. What genuinely moves the needle is a file that does not come back — correct documents, matching spellings, both witnesses with originals, and honesty about any earlier marriage.
The Revenue Department's page specifies 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. on any working day for the marriage-registration counter. That is a morning window, not a whole day, and it is the reason we tell every couple to treat the appointment as a morning commitment for four people — both spouses and both witnesses — rather than something to squeeze in after lunch.
No — and the 2014 Order says so in terms. Order 8 provides that "Registration of marriage under this order will not tantamount to validity of marriage."
This one clause answers a whole family of questions. A marriage is created by the ceremony — under Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act, at the seventh step of saptapadi where the rites include it. Registration records that marriage. So:
An unregistered marriage is not an invalid marriage. If the ceremony happened properly, you are married, and you have been married since that day.
A registered marriage is not automatically a valid one. If there was no ceremony at all, or a party already had a living spouse, or a party was below the legal age, the entry in the register does not cure any of it. This is precisely why the Supreme Court in 2024 held that where no ceremony took place, a certificate proves nothing and the registration can be set aside.
And that is the honest reason to register anyway. Not because it makes you married — it does not — but because it is the only thing that lets you prove you are married to a bank, a passport office, an embassy, an insurer, a pension office or a hospital.
Under the 2014 Order it is two witnesses "who shall certify to the solemnisation" of the marriage — Order 4(d). Under the Special Marriage Act, the Revenue Department's page states that both parties along with three witnesses are required.
The Revenue Department also lists, for Hindu Marriage Act registration, an attestation route involving a Gazetted Officer who attended the marriage. Couples hear that and panic, assuming they need to produce an officer. In practice the requirement is about attestation of the affidavit and the identification of the parties, and offices differ in what they will accept — so ask before you arrange anything, and do not let anybody sell you a "gazetted officer" as a service. We do not supply one, just as we do not supply witnesses.
Less drama than people expect, and more paper. Identity — both parties, originals. Age — the documentary proof, because age is the one thing that can be attacked years later by anybody. Residence — the basis on which this office has jurisdiction. Proof that a marriage was solemnised — the affidavits, the photographs, the mandir certificate or priest's certificate, and the invitation card if there is one. Marital status — whether either party has a living spouse, and the decree or death certificate where there was an earlier marriage. And the witnesses, present, with originals, signing there.
What he is not doing is assessing your relationship, asking about caste, or requiring anybody's parents. Consent of parents is not one of the five conditions in Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act, and caste does not appear in that Act at all.
He can decline to proceed on a defective file, and that is not the same thing as a refusal on the merits. The usual reasons are ordinary: a name that does not match across documents, a missing original, a witness who did not attend, an earlier marriage disclosed without a decree, or a residence that does not fall in that sub-division. Every one of those is fixable, and fixing the thing is the remedy — not escalating.
Where a requirement genuinely has no basis in law — a caste certificate, a parent's consent letter, a gotra clearance — the answer is different, and there is a calm ladder to climb that starts with asking which provision the requirement comes from. Our Mayur Vihar Phase 2 page sets that ladder out in full, including how to use the Right to Information Act to get a written answer with statutory timelines.
Both, in sequence, and confusing the two is the commonest reason a couple thinks the process is "stuck". The application is made on the Delhi government's e-District portal: you create an account, fill the form, upload the documents, pay, and receive an appointment. The appointment itself is physical — both spouses and the witnesses attend the SDM's office with all originals. Nobody can attend for you, and there is no proxy, power of attorney or video-call registration in India.
So "online marriage registration in Delhi" is real and it is also only half the process. Anyone advertising a fully online marriage is describing something that does not exist.
One — the ceremony, if it has not already happened. Under the Hindu Marriage Act you must be married before you can register; registration records a marriage, it does not create one.
Two — the affidavits. Prepared, sworn and attested. This is where the content of your future certificate is decided, so it is the step to slow down on rather than speed up.
Three — the e-District account and the form. Names exactly as on your identity documents, dates exactly as on the strongest record, address as it appears on the proof you are going to produce.
Four — the uploads. Identity, age, address, photographs, ceremony proof, and the decree or death certificate where there was an earlier marriage.
Five — the fee and the appointment. The portal allots the date; the office's load decides it.
Six — the appointment. Both spouses, both witnesses, all originals, in the morning window.
Seven — the entry and the certificate. The marriage is entered in the register and the certificate is a copy of that entry.
A name typed differently from the document. An initial expanded here and not there; a surname present on one and absent on another; two English spellings of the same name. The portal does not know which is right — the office does, when it compares.
An address that does not match the proof being uploaded. If the Aadhaar says one thing and the form says another, the jurisdiction itself comes into question.
Uploads that are unreadable. A photograph of a document at an angle, in poor light, with a thumb across a corner. Scan flat, or photograph on a flat surface in daylight.
A date of birth that two documents disagree about. This is not a portal problem and it will not pass at the counter either. It has to be resolved first.
Assuming the appointment can be chosen. It is allotted.
Before the entry is made, a mistake in the application is an inconvenience — it is corrected and the file moves on. After the entry is made in the register, it becomes a different animal. A duplicate simply re-issues what the register already says, so it is relatively quick; a correction has to change what the register says, so it needs evidence, takes longer, and in some cases cannot be done at the counter at all.
Which is why the single most valuable habit on this page is this: read the affidavit before you sign it, and check four fields — your name, your father's name, your date of birth, and the date and place of the marriage. What the affidavit says becomes what the certificate says, and you will hold that certificate for sixty years.
No. A couple with matching documents, a clear address proof and no complications can do the whole thing themselves, and we will say so on the phone if that is your situation — it costs us the booking and we are at peace with it.
What a service is genuinely for is the file that will otherwise come back: an address in somebody else's name, a name spelt three ways, a previous marriage, a ceremony from fifteen years ago with no paperwork, a couple split across the Delhi–UP or Delhi–Haryana line, or a deadline at the far end that everything has to be planned backwards from. Pay for the difficulty, not for the typing.
The word is used very loosely in this trade, so here is the careful version. Nothing shortens a statutory period. The Special Marriage Act's thirty-day notice is the law and no scheme, fee or contact shortens it by a day. What can sometimes move faster is the registration side of a marriage that has already been solemnised — and whether it can, on your file, on that week, is a question of fact rather than of money.
So when we are asked for tatkal we ask two questions back: what is your actual deadline, and what do your documents look like? If an ordinary appointment will meet the deadline, we say so and you keep the difference. If it will not, we prepare for the faster route honestly, including telling you where it may not work. The one thing we will not do is take money for speed that does not exist.
First, check it against the department's own norm — the Revenue Department states these are dealt with normally within 15 days under the Hindu Marriage Act and normally within 60 days under the Special Marriage Act, and a statutory notice period inside the SMA is not a delay, it is the law running.
Second, if it is genuinely beyond that, there is an escalation ladder that costs nothing: ask at the counter which stage it is at, ask in writing, ask the officer above the counter, file a dated written representation with an acknowledgment, use the departmental grievance route, and — last — file an RTI, which compels a written answer within statutory timelines. The full ladder, with the RTI timelines, is on our Mayur Vihar Phase 2 page.
And the honest counterweight: an appointment date allotted by load is not a delay, and a file returned because a document was missing is the office doing its job.
The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 applies where both parties are Hindu, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist. The marriage is created by a ceremony — Section 7 — and then registered under Section 8. There is no public notice at any stage.
The Special Marriage Act, 1954 is a civil route open to any two persons whatever their religion, and it does not need a ceremony at all. The marriage is solemnised by the Marriage Officer after a thirty-day public notice, in the presence of three witnesses.
They are different in kind, not in quality. Both produce a government certificate of equal standing. What differs is the route, the notice, the number of witnesses, the time, and — for some families — the succession consequences.
No — and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding on this subject. A great many couples are told, or assume, that "court marriage" means the Special Marriage Act and that it is somehow more official. It is not more official. For two Hindu, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist parties, a ceremony under Section 7 followed by registration under Section 8 produces a government certificate that a bank, a passport office or an embassy treats identically — with no thirty-day notice, no public display, and two witnesses instead of three.
We say this even though it costs us the difference between ₹15,000 and ₹7,100 every time, because a couple who paid double for a slower and less private route works it out eventually.
Under the Special Marriage Act, notice of the intended marriage is given to the Marriage Officer, entered in the Marriage Notice Book, and displayed publicly at the office for thirty days, during which any person may object on the grounds the Act allows.
There is a further limb that surprises migrant couples: where a party is not permanently resident in the Marriage Officer's district, a copy of the notice is sent for display to the district where that party is permanently resident. So for two people who both moved to Delhi for work, two copies go out to two home districts at the same time — the two towns where the two families are known.
That is not a reason to avoid the Act where it is the right route. It is a reason to know, before you file, exactly what the Act does.
An objection is only good if it says the marriage would breach one of the conditions in Section 4 of the Act — a living spouse, incapacity to consent, being under age, or being within the degrees of prohibited relationship. "Her family disapproves", "he is from another caste", "we had other plans" are not objections in law, whatever the tone in which they are delivered.
Where an objection is made, the Marriage Officer inquires and decides, and the Act contemplates that being done within thirty days. His decision can be appealed to the district court within the time the Act allows, and the Act also provides for costs where an objection was frivolous or vexatious. In practice the great majority of objections in this city are social pressure wearing a legal costume, and they do not survive the first question: which condition in Section 4 do you say is breached?
For some families, yes, and it is the part nobody mentions until later. Under Section 19, a marriage under the Act by a member of an undivided family professing the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion is deemed to effect his severance from that family, and Section 21 shifts succession to the Indian Succession Act, 1925.
But Section 21A disapplies both where the marriage is between two persons who both profess the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion. So an inter-caste Hindu couple is saved — 21A is written by religion, not caste — and anybody telling such a couple that court marriage cuts them out of family property has it backwards. An inter-religion couple is not saved, and for a member of a joint family business that is a real consequence to take advice on before notice is given, never a reason to convert. The Daryaganj page works through this in full.
| You are | Route | Notice | Witnesses | Our fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Both Hindu / Sikh / Jain / Buddhist, any castes | Ceremony under HMA s.7 + registration under s.8 | None | Two | ₹7,100 |
| Already married by ceremony, want the certificate | Registration under HMA s.8 | None | Two | ₹6,000 |
| Different religions, neither converting | Special Marriage Act | 30 days, displayed | Three | ₹15,000 |
| Different religions, considering shuddhi | Shuddhi then HMA route | None | Two | ₹10,000 |
| Marriage solemnised abroad | Do not remarry — authenticate it there | — | — | — |
If your row is the last one, read our NRI marriage page before doing anything else. Two marriage records with two different dates contradict each other for the rest of your life.
No, and the phrase causes more confusion than any other in this business. An Arya Samaj marriage is a ceremony — Vedic rites, havan, saptapadi — performed at a mandir, and it creates the marriage under Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act. A "court marriage", as people use the phrase, means the government registration, which is done by the SDM, who is not a judge and does not sit in a court.
So "Arya Samaj court marriage" is not one thing. It is two things bought together: the ceremony that makes you married, and the registration that lets you prove it. That is exactly what our ₹7,100 package is, and why it exists as a single line on the fees page.
The Revenue Department's list for Hindu Marriage Act registration is unglamorous and specific, and it maps onto an Arya Samaj wedding neatly: an application form signed by both husband and wife; separate affidavits in the prescribed format from each; self-attested proof of age and of residence; passport-size photographs, two each, plus photographs of the ceremony; the marriage invitation card, if available; and, where the marriage was solemnised at a religious place, a priest's certificate.
Read that last one again, because it is what the mandir certificate is for. It is not the document a bank will accept — it is the document that proves to the Registrar that a ceremony took place, so that he can make the entry. The mandir certificate is an input to the registration, not a substitute for it.
Yes, and take more than you think. The department's own list asks for them, and they do a second job years later if the marriage is ever questioned: photographs with the witnesses visible in them are far more useful than two people alone in front of a fire. Keep the invitation card too, even if it was a quiet wedding with eight people — it is on the list, it costs nothing to keep, and it is the sort of thing nobody can reconstruct afterwards.
You can, and you will be validly married the whole time — but the 2014 Order's clock is running. Order 4(a) gives sixty days from the ceremony; beyond that, Order 6 allows condonation of a further sixty days on an additional ₹500, and Order 7 provides a ₹1,000 penalty for non-registration, remittable by the ADM or DM.
None of that makes late registration impossible — we register marriages from the 1990s — and the amounts do not compound. But the practical case for doing it in the same week is not the fee. It is that the witnesses are still findable, the photographs are still on somebody's phone, and both of you remember the date of the ceremony to the day. Every one of those decays.
Completely. Section 7(1) says a Hindu marriage may be solemnised in accordance with the customary rites and ceremonies of either party — either, not both, and not whichever form is locally usual. A Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayali, Bengali, Odia, Marathi or north-eastern ceremony performed by your own priest is a lawful solemnisation in Delhi, and it registers under Section 8 exactly like any other.
Section 7(2) then adds the rule people half-remember: where the rites include the saptapadi, the marriage is complete and binding at the seventh step. That is conditional — it is not a requirement imposed on ceremonies that never had saptapadi.
If that is your situation, the row you want on the fee list is ₹6,000 — registration of a marriage already solemnised, not the combined package. Our Dwarka Sector 6 page goes through this, and through documents in regional scripts, in detail.
For the fact of being married, yes — the ceremony did that, and no piece of paper is doing the work. For anything institutional, no. A bank opening a joint account, a passport office adding a spouse's name, an embassy assessing a visa, an insurer paying a claim, a pension office adding a spouse, a hospital recognising next of kin — all of them are asking for the government certificate, because that is the one they can verify against a register.
And abroad it is absolute: a mandir certificate cannot be apostilled and does not travel. That is why an NRI file has no ₹5,100 option at all.
Three different pockets, and the confusion between them is what lets people be overcharged.
| What it covers | Typical amount | |
|---|---|---|
| The government | The statutory registration fee, and any condonation fee or penalty where there has been delay | Tens and hundreds — ₹100 (HMA, Revenue Department), ₹200 (Order 4(b)), ₹15 (SMA solemnisation), plus ₹500 condonation or ₹1,000 penalty only where applicable |
| Third parties | Notary attestation, e-stamp value, certified translation, MEA apostille (about ₹50 per page government fee), embassy attestation, photography | ₹100–₹200 per affidavit for a notary; the rest only if your file needs it |
| Us | Telling you the honest route before you pay, drafting and checking, the ceremony where that is your route, filing at the correct office, attending, following up, and taking up any baseless demand through our advocate | The published figures on the fees page — the same for everyone |
The only one of those three that a service can inflate without you noticing is the first. Which is why the sentence to memorise is: the government's own charge here is in tens and hundreds, not thousands — ask which rule, and ask for the receipt.
Three ordinary situations, worked through. These are illustrations, not quotations — your file decides.
A Delhi couple, both Hindu, documents in order, marrying this month. Our combined Arya Samaj plus court marriage package at ₹7,100; the statutory registration fee; a notary at ₹100–₹200 per affidavit. No condonation, because they are inside the sixty days. No translation, no apostille. The overwhelming majority of the cost is the service, and the government's part is a rounding error.
A couple registering a mandir marriage from 2011. Registration of an already-solemnised marriage at ₹6,000, or ₹12,000 where the proof has to be rebuilt from scratch; the statutory fee; notary; and the delay machinery — ₹500 condonation or the ₹1,000 penalty as the case may be, which does not grow with the years. What costs more here is not money but effort: finding the register extract, the photographs and the witnesses.
A couple with a spouse visa at the far end. The ₹7,100 package or the NRI tier; the statutory fee; notary; then the authentication chain — state authentication where required, MEA apostille (about ₹50 per page government fee) for a Hague Convention country or MEA attestation plus that country's embassy where it is not; and certified translation where the destination asks for one. Two to six weeks for the chain, more with a translation — which is why this file is planned backwards from the flight, not forwards from the wedding.
The government statutory fee. Notary charges of ₹100–₹200 per affidavit. Any late-registration or condonation amount. MEA apostille and embassy attestation where the certificate goes abroad. Certified translation. And optional extras — photography, video, garlands, decoration, transport.
Every one of those is on the fees page with worked examples, and every one of them should be said to you on the phone, before you travel. Ask for the total on WhatsApp. It takes one minute and it is the cheapest protection available in this whole process.
Not usually by fraud — by omission, and by timing. A figure is quoted on the phone for one component. You arrive, dressed, with your witnesses who took the morning off, and the rest appears: the registration is separate, the affidavits are extra, the photographs are extra, the "office expenses" are extra. At that point walking out costs you the day, the witnesses' goodwill and the family's questions, so almost nobody walks out. The leverage is the moment, not the money.
The defence is entirely mechanical and it happens before you leave home: get the total and the not-included list in writing on WhatsApp. A service that will not put its own price in writing has told you something important for free.
Often, yes — and we will tell you so. A couple with matching documents, a clean Delhi address proof, no earlier marriage and no deadline can file on e-District and attend the appointment without anybody's help. The government's own charge is small and the portal is usable.
What you are buying when you do pay is the file not coming back, and someone to take it up when something has no basis. If none of the difficulties apply to you, keep the money. We would rather say that on a free call than take a booking for typing.
No — none of them, ever. Not for a same-day request, not for an address at the far end of the city, not for an inter-caste or inter-religion couple, not for a couple from outside Delhi, and not for an NRI. The NRI tiers are higher only because they contain real apostille and embassy work, not because of who is asking.
And there are things we will not take money for at any price: witnesses; a shortened statutory notice; a certificate for a ceremony that did not happen; a back-dated document; a guaranteed court or visa outcome; a marriage below the legal age; or a marriage while an earlier one subsists.
Short answers to the things people type into a search box at eleven at night. The long versions of most of these are in the five sections above; the pages linked at the end of this list go further still.
This site is large on purpose — a marriage file has a dozen moving parts and each one deserves proper treatment rather than a paragraph. If you know which part you are stuck on, go straight there.
| You want to know about | Go to |
|---|---|
| The Vedic ceremony, saptapadi, the Arya Marriage Validation Act 1937, ₹5,100 vs ₹7,100 | Arya Samaj Marriage |
| The Special Marriage Act in full — the thirty-day notice, objections, three witnesses, severance and succession | Court Marriage & the Special Marriage Act |
| Registration itself — HMA s.8, the Delhi rule, proving an old marriage, tatkal, duplicate vs correction | Marriage Registration |
| The certificate as an object — duplicate, correction, apostille, fake certificates, what to check the day you get it | Certificate, Duplicate & Correction |
| Family opposition, the judgments, protection petitions, what happens when a family goes to the police | Love Marriage & Protection |
| Caste is not in the Act, gotra has no standing, prohibited degrees and sapinda, the Ambedkar scheme stated honestly | Inter-Caste Marriage |
| Two religions — SMA without conversion vs shuddhi, and the state conversion laws that follow your home state | Inter-Religion Marriage |
| Apostille, embassy attestation, spouse visas, OCI, and why a mandir certificate does not travel | NRI Marriage & Apostille |
| Every document, and the substitute that works when one is missing or two disagree | Documents Required |
| The process end to end, and the twelve places it breaks | The Complete Process |
| Every price, what is not included, and worked total-cost examples | Complete Fee List |
| A marriage from years ago that was never registered — the penalty, who can remit it, and what proof works | Late Marriage Registration Delhi |
| A name, date of birth or marriage date printed wrong on the certificate — what is a correction, what is a duplicate, and what proof the office needs | Marriage Certificate Correction Delhi |
| Getting an appointment date, the four clocks that run at once, who must physically attend, and how to plan backwards from a visa interview or a flight | Marriage Registration Appointment Delhi |
| Who can be a witness, two or three, what a witness is actually signing, what he must bring — and why witnesses are never supplied for a fee | Witnesses for Marriage Registration Delhi |
| Changing your name after marriage — why it is not compulsory, the affidavit-newspaper-Gazette route, and what the official guidelines actually ask for | Name Change After Marriage Delhi |
| Remarrying after a divorce — Section 15, the ninety-day appeal window, what proves the decree is final, and what changes when a second marriage is registered | Remarriage After Divorce Delhi |
| A single status or no-impediment certificate for marrying abroad — why it is a declaration rather than a records search, the attestation chain, and what the MEA actually charges | Single Status Certificate Delhi |
| Registering an Anand Karaj — Section 6 of the Anand Marriage Act, the Delhi Anand Marriages Rules 2018, the 2025 Supreme Court direction, and how the Hindu Marriage Act route compares | Anand Marriage Act Registration Delhi |
| A marriage where one or both parties is Christian — why Section 4 makes the ceremony decide validity, who may solemnise under Section 5, the hours and notice, and why the civil route is usually the answer | Christian Marriage Registration Delhi |
| How to tell whether a marriage certificate is genuine — why the paper proves nothing, the three fields that decide whether a check is even possible, how a certified extract of the register entry is asked for, and the five things that look like forgery and usually are not | Verify a Marriage Certificate Delhi |
| Janakpuri and west Delhi — what a DDA allotment, possession letter and conveyance deed do and do not prove, why an address written three ways gets a file returned, the free electoral-roll repair on Form 8, and the ECR page in the passport of everyone here going abroad | Arya Samaj Mandir Court Marriage Janakpuri |
| Laxmi Nagar and east Delhi — building an address file when a paying-guest room produces no paper at all, the Aadhaar Head-of-Family address route with its ₹50 fee and thirty-day consent window, and the provident fund and gratuity nominations that two statutes treat as invalid from the day you marry | Arya Samaj Vedic Marriage Laxmi Nagar |
| Lajpat Nagar and south Delhi — rehabilitation-lease papers that still name people who died decades ago and why none of it blocks a marriage, and Delhi’s own Right to Time Bound Delivery of Services Act with its ₹10-a-day compensation payable by the officer who is late | Court Marriage Arya Samaj Mandir Lajpat Nagar |
| Pitampura and north-west Delhi — what a self-employed household brings instead of a salary slip and why the firm’s papers stay at the office, plus the bank and locker nominations no employer will ever prompt a business family to file, with section 45ZA quoted and the Reserve Bank’s fifteen-day claim norm | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Registration Pitampura |
| Malviya Nagar and the south Delhi rented belt — why both partners need not prove the same address, what to do when the flat’s owner lives abroad and a broker collects the rent, and the two statutes that decide a life policy: section 39(7) of the Insurance Act making a spouse “beneficially entitled”, and the 1874 Act under which a policy written for a wife is a trust beyond the husband’s creditors | Vedic Arya Samaj Marriage Malviya Nagar |
| Vikaspuri and west Delhi — the cheapest lawful route priced rupee by rupee with the statutory fees separated from anybody’s service charge, the four economies that cost more later, and the safety net: free legal aid under section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act (no income test in the clause naming a woman or a child) and what a Lok Adalat award binds you to | Arya Samaj Shaadi Court Registration Vikaspuri |
| Krishna Nagar and east Delhi — the nine questions to ask any marriage service before money changes hands (including ours), and the consumer forum if somebody takes payment and does not deliver: the District Commission, filing where you live under section 34(2), two years under section 69, and refund, compensation and costs under section 39 | Arya Samaj Marriage Registration Krishna Nagar |
| Burari and north Delhi — why every rent agreement in the city runs for eleven months (section 17(1)(d) of the Registration Act), what an unregistered document is and is not worth under section 49, and what to do when your Aadhaar still carries a village address in another state | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Burari |
| Chhatarpur and the farmhouse belt — the legal file nobody at a big wedding is assigned to own, and what the Noise Pollution Rules actually say about amplified music: written permission under rule 5(1), the 10 p.m. prohibition outside closed premises under rule 5(2), the fifteen-day midnight relaxation, and the residential and silence-zone limits | Arya Samaj Vedic Shaadi Chhatarpur |
| Paschim Vihar and west Delhi — settled society flats where the flat, the electricity and the society’s register all name a parent and the married couple appears on no document at all, the one-month sequence that fixes it, and the document a comfortable family eventually needs but has never heard of: the Surviving Member Certificate, its published requirements, and where a marriage certificate quietly fits | Arya Samaj Marriage Registration Paschim Vihar |
| Shalimar Bagh and north-west Delhi — the colony where the house, the accounts and all three vehicles sit in one name, and the deadline nobody warns a family about: rule 56 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, Form 31 within three months of the owner’s death, section 50(2) and “the person succeeding to the possession of the vehicle”, and section 166 on the legal representatives who may claim after an accident | Vedic Arya Samaj Shaadi Registration Shalimar Bagh |
| Okhla and Jamia Nagar — which route actually belongs to your marriage, said plainly (a Muslim couple is pointed to nikah and Muslim registration, not an Arya Samaj ceremony), and why it matters in a factory belt: the ESI Act defines “family” at section 2(11) with clause (i) reading simply “a spouse”, and “dependant” at section 2(6A) with clause (i) naming “a widow” first, ahead of the dependants’ benefit under section 52 and the funeral payment to the eldest surviving member of the family | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Okhla & Jamia Nagar |
| Tilak Nagar and the west Delhi market belt — shops and the flats above them held on tenancies older than the shopkeepers, and what section 2(l) of the Delhi Rent Control Act does on a tenant’s death: the definition reaches those ordinarily living there “as a member or members of his family up to the date of his death”, in the order spouse, son or daughter, parents, widow of a pre-deceased son — with Explanation II’s one-year limit for a successor who was not financially dependent, and section 3(c)’s ₹3,500 rent ceiling on the Act applying at all | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Tilak Nagar |
| Vasant Kunj and south Delhi — the belt of rented flats and transferable jobs where registration slides until a quarter ends, and what it actually slides into: section 7 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, whose Explanation clause (b) is “a suit or proceeding for a declaration as to the validity of a marriage or as to the matrimonial status of any person” — the route left when photographs are all you have. Why delay costs almost nothing in rupees and everything in evidence, whether to register in Delhi if you will be posted out, and triage for couples who have already been asked | Vedic Arya Samaj Court Marriage Vasant Kunj |
| Paharganj and the arrival belt behind New Delhi Railway Station — what to do when the bag carrying every document is stolen days before the wedding: section 173 of the BNSS, 2023, under which information about a cognizable offence may be given “irrespective of the area where the offence is committed” and orally or electronically, a copy “shall be given forthwith, free of cost”, and a refusal goes in writing by post to the Superintendent of Police — plus the order duplicates come in, why nobody can register you without originals, and how to marry now and register when the papers return | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Paharganj |
| Connaught Place and central Delhi — the salaried belt whose questions are money questions: what section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act actually says about wedding gifts (the aggregate test, and the proviso excepting anything “from any relative” or received “on the occasion of the marriage of the individual” — the couple’s exception, not a blanket over everybody present), how the Explanation’s definition of “relative” is itself created by the wedding, which route publishes a public notice and which does not, the group-cover enrolment window nobody warns you about, and why the form wants your home address and not your office | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Connaught Place |
| Nangloi, Mundka and the outer west — the units-and-godowns belt, and the fact almost nobody in it has been told: under section 8(1) of the Employee’s Compensation Act, 1923, compensation where an injury resulted in death, and any lump sum payable to a woman, cannot be paid otherwise than by deposit with the Commissioner, and “no such payment made directly by an employer shall be deemed to be a payment of compensation” — with the three months’ wages advance, the Commissioner determining distribution among the dependants under section 8(4), and section 4A’s one month, 12 per cent interest and penalty up to 50 per cent | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Nangloi & Mundka |
| Jahangirpuri, Bhalswa and Adarsh Nagar — the belt where the landlord, the shopkeeper and three hundred wedding guests all know a couple is married and none of it is on paper, answered with the evidence law nobody quotes: section 74 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam makes records of the acts of public officers “public documents” and everything else private, and section 29 provides that an entry made by a public servant in the discharge of official duty “is itself a relevant fact” — plus what a pradhan’s letter, an affidavit and a ration card are really worth, and the one-letter spelling mismatch that sends files back | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Jahangirpuri & Adarsh Nagar |
| Sultanpuri and Mangolpuri — resettlement colonies where the ration card is the household’s first document, and the section nobody has been told about: section 13(1) of the National Food Security Act, 2013, under which “the eldest woman who is not less than eighteen years of age, in every eligible household, shall be head of the household for the purpose of issue of ration cards”, with section 13(2) making a male head only a holding arrangement — plus the narrow scope of that section, why a wife must be added to one card and removed from another, and why the certificate has to come first | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Sultanpuri & Mangolpuri |
| Timarpur, Nehru Vihar, Mukherjee Nagar and the North Campus belt — PG rooms with no agreement and cards printed with an address eight hundred kilometres away, answered by section 9 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016: “the Aadhaar number or the authentication thereof shall not, by itself, confer any right of, or be proof of, citizenship or domicile” — so the card is not deciding where you may marry; solemnisation follows where the rites are performed and registration follows actual residence, with a table of what Aadhaar does and does not answer, which route publishes a notice, and what marriage does and does not change for a student | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Timarpur |
| Ghazipur, Khichripur, Dallupura, Kondli and the mandi lanes — a market that works through the night and households of eight in two rooms, answered by section 17(1) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005: “every woman in a domestic relationship shall have the right to reside in the shared household, whether or not she has any right, title or beneficial interest in the same”, with section 17(2) on exclusion from any part of it and section 2(s) expressly including a joint-family household — plus four honest corrections on what the section is not, proving residence when every paper is in somebody else’s name, and registering a village wedding from years ago | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Ghazipur |
| Rithala, the Rohini sectors, Budh Vihar and Prashant Vihar — a belt of co-operative group housing societies where a flat is a share in a society, answered by section 28(1) of the Delhi Co-operative Societies Act, 2003: on a member’s death the society transfers the share “to the person nominated … or, if there is no person so nominated, to such person as may appear to the committee to be the heir or legal representative” — with Rule 30(1) of the 2007 Rules permitting nomination only of “any person or persons in first degree blood relation”, and Rule 30(6) requiring, where there is no nomination, a public notice in two leading national newspapers inviting claims or objections before the management committee decides, appealable to the Registrar within thirty days | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Rithala |
| Najafgarh and the villages around it — Khaira, Dichaon Kalan, Kair, Jharoda Kalan, Chhawla, Mitraon, Ujwa and Jaffarpur, where families stay joint and land stays undivided — answered by section 19(1) of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956: “a Hindu wife, whether married before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be entitled to be maintained after the death of her husband by her father-in-law”, with the proviso putting her own earnings, her husband’s, father’s and mother’s estates and her children ahead of him, section 19(2) tying enforceability to “coparcenary property in his possession” and ending the obligation on her remarriage, and section 3 defining maintenance as food, clothing, residence, education and medical attendance — plus travelling once from a village an hour away | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Najafgarh |
| Karol Bagh, Ajmal Khan Road, Bank Street, Gaffar Market, Naiwala, Beadonpura, Regharpura and Dev Nagar — a market of family firms where the business is the family — answered by section 64 of the Income-tax Act, 1961: clause (ii) includes income arising “to the spouse of such individual by way of salary, commission, fees or any other form of remuneration whether in cash or in kind from a concern in which such individual has a substantial interest”, and clause (iv) income from assets transferred to a spouse “otherwise than for adequate consideration” — with the proviso requiring both technical or professional qualifications and income “solely attributable” to applying them, Explanation 2 aggregating relatives’ holdings for the twenty per cent test “at any time during the previous year”, and Explanation 1 placing the income with whichever spouse has the greater total income, with a right to be heard | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Karol Bagh |
| Shahdara, Seelampur, Welcome, Jaffrabad, Maujpur, Babarpur, Brahmpuri, Gokalpuri, Vishwas Nagar and Jhilmil — workshops, units and shift work, where almost every household has a provident fund number — answered by paragraph 2(g) of the Employees’ Provident Funds Scheme, 1952, defining “family” for a male member as “his wife, his children, whether married or unmarried, his dependant parents and his deceased son’s widow and children” and for a female member as “her husband, her children … her dependant parents, her husband’s dependant parents and her deceased son’s widow and children”, with the two provisos by which a spouse leaves that definition — plus paragraph 22 of the Employees’ Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976, which pays to “the persons entitled to receive the provident fund accumulations of the deceased” and so has no list of its own | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Shahdara |
| Kalkaji, Govindpuri, Tughlakabad, Sangam Vihar, Madangir and Dakshinpuri — where a household’s whole income can rest on one stretch of pavement — answered by section 5 of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014: the vendor undertakes that he “shall not transfer in any manner whatsoever, including rent, the certificate of vending or the place specified therein”, while section 5(2) provides that where he “dies or suffers from any permanent disability or is ill, one of his family member in following order of priority, may vend in his place … (a) spouse of the street vendor; (b) dependent child” — and section 2, which defines fourteen terms, defines neither “spouse” nor “family member”, so a contested pitch goes to a committee under section 20 | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Kalkaji |
| Rajouri Garden, Subhash Nagar, Tagore Garden, Ramesh Nagar and Raja Garden — Delhi’s banquet belt, where more property moves in one evening than in the couple’s next ten years and almost none of it is written down — answered by two provisions: section 27 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, under which “in any proceeding under this Act, the court may make such provisions in the decree as it deems just and proper with respect to any property presented, at or about the time of marriage, which may belong jointly to both the husband and the wife”; and section 14(1) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, under which property possessed by a female Hindu “shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner”, its Explanation covering gifts “from any person, whether a relative or not, before, at, or after her marriage” and property held as stridhana, subject to the restricted-estate exception in s.14(2) | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Rajouri Garden |
| Saket, Mehrauli, Lado Sarai, Khirki Extension, Hauz Rani, Said-ul-Ajaib and Sheikh Sarai — four homes on every plot that once held one, and a sentence said at every wedding: “yeh floor tumhara hai” — answered by the Transfer of Property Act, 1882. Section 123: “For the purpose of making a gift of immoveable property, the transfer must be effected by a registered instrument signed by or on behalf of the donor, and attested by at least two witnesses”, while moveable property may pass “by delivery”. And section 122: a gift is property given “voluntarily and without consideration … and accepted by or on behalf of the donee”, with acceptance “during the lifetime of the donor and while he is still capable of giving”, and “if the donee dies before acceptance, the gift is void” — so what most households hold is permission, not a transfer | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Saket |
| Karawal Nagar, Mustafabad, Dayalpur, Sabhapur, Sonia Vihar and Khajuri Khas — colonies built lane by lane, where the work usually has no employer behind it and so no provident fund, gratuity or employer’s pension — answered by the Atal Pension Yojana, which needs no employer at all. The Department of Financial Services publishes a guaranteed minimum pension of ₹1,000 to ₹5,000 a month, open where “the age of the subscriber should be between 18 and 40 years”, and provides that “after the subscriber’s demise, the spouse of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the same pension amount as that of the subscriber, until the death of the spouse”, with the nominee taking the accumulated pension wealth after both — and under the scheme’s published terms a married subscriber’s spouse is the default nominee | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Karawal Nagar |
| Munirka, Ber Sarai, Kishangarh, Katwaria Sarai, Vasant Gaon and the R K Puram sectors — two universities, government quarters and couples from more states than any other belt in Delhi — where one question arises that hardly arises elsewhere: which marriage law applies to us? Section 2(1)(a) of the Hindu Marriage Act applies it to any Hindu “including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj”, but section 2(2) provides that “nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the members of any Scheduled Tribe within the meaning of clause (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution unless the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, otherwise directs” — read by the Delhi High Court on 6 November 2025 as not absolute where a tribe’s members voluntarily follow Hindu rites — while section 4 of the Special Marriage Act allows “a marriage between any two persons” to be solemnised under it | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Munirka |
| Narela, the industrial estate, Bawana, Holambi Kalan and Khurd, Bankner and the belt along the GT Karnal Road — a workforce recruited in another State and employed through a thekedar, holding almost nothing in its own name. Parliament wrote a statute about exactly these men: section 2(1)(e) of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 defines an inter-State migrant workman as anyone “recruited by or through a contractor in one State … for employment in an establishment in another State, whether with or without the knowledge of the principal employer”; section 12(1)(b) owes him a pass book bearing his photograph and printed in his own language, which section 12(2) requires to be “retained with the inter-State migrant workman concerned”; and section 16(g) requires a fatal accident to be reported to the authorities of both States “and also the next of kin of the workman” — without ever saying who the next of kin is, or how anybody establishes it | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Narela |
| Trilokpuri Blocks 1 to 36, Kalyanpuri, Khichripur and Dallupura — a colony settled fifty years ago, full of weddings nobody recorded. Families here are told constantly that a marriage without a paper cannot be proved, and that is simply untrue: section 44 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 makes “the opinion, expressed by conduct … of any person who, as a member of the family or otherwise, has special means of knowledge on the subject” a relevant fact where a court must decide a relationship, and the statute’s own first illustration is a marriage — “the fact that they were usually received and treated by their friends as husband and wife, is relevant”. Section 26(e) admits what a dead relative said if he “had special means of knowledge” and spoke “before the question in dispute was raised”, and 26(f) reaches a will, a family pedigree, even a tombstone. But the route runs only inside a court, counts as a relevant fact rather than proof, is declared insufficient by its own proviso in Divorce Act proceedings and under BNS s.82 and s.84 — and depends entirely on living witnesses, who in a 1976 colony are now in their seventies and eighties | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Trilokpuri |
| Nand Nagri, Sunder Nagri, Mandoli, Saboli and Harsh Vihar — blocks built by resettling households, where what a family holds flows from how it was once counted. Parliament answered that same question again in 2013, and began with a husband or wife: section 3(m) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act defines a family as one that “includes a person, his or her spouse, minor children, minor brothers and minor sisters dependent on him” — the spouse named second, before the children, and the only person in the list carrying no test of minority and no test of dependence. Its proviso then provides that “widows, divorcees and women deserted by families shall be considered separate families”, and its Explanation that “an adult of either gender with or without spouse or children or dependents shall be considered as a separate family”, while section 3(c)(vi) reaches “a family residing on any land in the urban areas for preceding three years or more” — residing, not owning. Every layer is hinged on a marriage and not one says how to prove one | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Nand Nagri |
| Badarpur, the border, Molarband, Meethapur, Tajpur Pahari and Jaitpur — one side of the road is Delhi, the other Haryana, and half the households straddle the line. The question this belt asks most, “Delhi se certificate bana lenge to Haryana mein chalega?”, is answered not by any marriage statute but by the Constitution: Article 261(1) provides that “full faith and credit shall be given throughout the territory of India to public acts, records and judicial proceedings of the Union and of every State” — and a register kept by a registering authority, with the certificate issued from it, is exactly such a record. Article 261(2) leaves the manner of proving it “as provided by law made by Parliament” and 261(3) makes final civil judgments “capable of execution anywhere within that territory”, while Article 19(1)(e) gives every citizen the right “to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India” and 19(1)(d) “to move freely” through it, subject only to reasonable restrictions by law under 19(5). The practical consequence: there is no legal basis for registering the same marriage a second time in another State, and any offer to do so for a fee should be refused | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Badarpur |
| Sangam Vihar’s lettered blocks, Devli, Tigri, Khanpur, Duggal Colony and Madangir — lanes where hardly any plot changed hands by registered sale deed and what households hold is a GPA, an agreement to sell, a possession letter and a receipt. In 2019 Parliament passed an Act naming those exact papers: the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Recognition of Property Rights of Residents in Unauthorised Colonies) Act defines a “resident” as “a person having physical possession of property on the basis of a registered sale deed or latest Power of Attorney, Agreement to Sale, Will, possession letter and other documents including documents evidencing payment of consideration … and includes their legal heirs but does not include tenant, licensee or permissive user”. Possession rather than title; the informal instruments named outright; and four words at the end — “and includes their legal heirs” — on which tens of thousands of households depend, since the man named on a 1994 GPA is often long dead. For a widow that means having been his wife, and the Act says nothing whatever about how she shows it. The honest other half: tenants, licensees and permissive users are excluded in terms, and the Act reaches only colonies “identified for regularisation” under a named 2008 notification | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Sangam Vihar |
| Tughlakabad yard and the container depot, the station colonies, the village and the Extension — a belt whose income comes off a railway, and the sharpest example on this site of a statute that turns on a marriage. Section 123(b)(i) of the Railways Act, 1989 defines who may claim when a passenger is killed: “the wife, husband, son and daughter, and in case the deceased passenger is unmarried or is a minor, his parent”. Most provisions merely name the spouse, so a missing certificate is a want of proof; here marital status is a switch that changes who the beneficiary is — married, and the wife heads the list before the children with no test of dependence attached to her at all; unmarried, and “his parent” takes that place. The Act asks whether he was married, arranges the entitlement around the answer, and says nothing about how it is established. Section 124A meanwhile makes the railway liable “whether or not there has been any wrongful act, neglect or default” and “notwithstanding anything contained in any other law” — a no-fault liability reaching even “the accidental falling of any passenger from a train carrying passengers”, with its proviso quoted in full. A provision that lifts the burden of proving fault, and leaves standing the burden of proving a marriage, puts the certificate at the centre of a family’s position | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Tughlakabad |
| Patparganj, the IP Extension society blocks, Patparganj village, Mandawali and the Vinod Nagars — thirty-five-year-old flats held by couples in their seventies, where the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 identifies the person liable to maintain a childless senior citizen not by relationship but by inheritance: a “relative” is “any legal heir of the childless senior citizen who is not a minor and is in possession of or would inherit his property after his death”, section 4(4) imposes the duty on such a relative “having sufficient means”, and its proviso apportions the burden “in the proportion in which they would inherit his property” — so a Tribunal must work out shares in an inheritance that has not happened, which is impossible unless the family’s structure in law is settled; with the ninety-day statutory clock, what nomination forms and society records do and do not settle, and why witnesses here should be a generation younger | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Patparganj |
| Deoli and Deoli village, Khanpur and Khanpur Extension, Dakshinpuri, Ambedkar Nagar, Madangir and Tigri — fifty-year-old resettlement plots where every document names somebody who has died, and the only page here built on a statute that does not ask whether you are married. Section 43 of the Electricity Act, 2003 obliges a distribution licensee to give supply “on an application by the owner or occupier of any premises… within one month after receipt of the application” — so an occupier may apply in their own right even where the bill, the allotment and every other paper carry a grandfather’s name, which is how a household gets its first document in a living applicant’s own name and therefore the address proof the marriage file wants. Sub-section (2) makes providing the line part of the duty; sub-section (3) attaches “a penalty which may extend to one thousand rupees for each day of default”. Also quotes section 2(15) on who is a “consumer”, sections 45(1) and 46 on published tariffs against cash quoted in a lane, and section 56 on old arrears — fifteen clear days’ notice in writing, a deposit under protest of whichever amount is less, and the two-year bar in section 56(2). Says twice that a bill proves an address, never a marriage, and gives nobody a claim on the house | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Deoli & Khanpur |
| Kirari Suleman Nagar, Nithari, Prem Nagar, Mubarakpur Dabas, Pooth Kalan and Rani Khera — one of the youngest belts in Delhi, where the households are in their thirties and the children are still at school, and the page built on the sharpest marriage provision on this site. Section 116 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (“Birth during marriage, conclusive proof of legitimacy”) makes the fact that a person was born “during the continuance of a valid marriage between his mother and any man” “conclusive proof that he is the legitimate child of that man” — and “conclusive proof” is itself a defined term under which the Court “shall, on proof of the one fact, regard the other as proved, and shall not allow evidence to be given for the purpose of disproving it”, so contrary evidence is not weighed but shut out. Sets the three rungs side by side — “may presume”, “shall presume” and conclusive proof — against the ordinary “prudent man” standard in the definition of “proved” that every other page on this site runs on. The section’s only condition is a valid marriage, not a prior registration, which answers the commonest belief in this belt: that a certificate is pointless once the children are born. The access exception is quoted in full and expressly left to proceedings; with what a birth certificate does and does not do, why the parents’ names must match across the marriage entry and each child’s birth record, and why the third certified copy belongs to the children | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Kirari & Nithari |
| Wazirpur Industrial Area and its rolling and pickling units, Wazirpur village and the clusters along the drain, Ashok Vihar and the older colonies — a belt where the first money a household receives after a death is union money, not compensation or a provident fund, and where that money is authorised by a statute almost nobody reads. Section 15 of the Trade Unions Act, 1926 opens restrictively — “The general funds of a registered Trade Union shall not be spent on any other objects than the following” — and then permits, in clause (f), “allowances to members or their dependants on account of death, old age, sickness, accidents or unemployment of such members”, and in clause (h) “the payment of the expenses of funeral or religious ceremonies for deceased members… or for the dependants of members”. But the Act never defines “dependant” — not in section 15, not in section 2, nowhere — and prescribes no procedure at all: no form, no officer, no tribunal, no appeal. Sharper still, clauses (c), (d) and (e), the fighting-the-employer clauses, are framed around “any member thereof”, and the widow who must pursue the employer was never a member; while section 13 gives the union itself “perpetual succession”, so the institution outlives its members by law and the family rebuilds its standing out of paper. Also quotes clause (g) on union life policies, clause (j)’s one-fourth ceiling, section 21 (fifteen for membership) and section 21A, with the office’s complete non-connection to any union stated at the top of the page | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Wazirpur & Ashok Vihar |
| Nehru Place market and its upper floors, the repair and software trade, Chirag Dilli, Kalkaji and the lanes behind — a market built out of small family partnership firms, a great many of them without a written deed, and governed by the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 whether anybody in them has read it or not. Section 42: “Subject to contract between the partners a firm is dissolved—… (c) by the death of a partner” — so dissolution is the default, and “subject to contract” is the escape these firms most often lack; section 4 requires no writing for a firm to exist at all. Section 37 then decides what a family gets while the survivors trade on “without any final settlement of accounts”: the outgoing partner or his estate is entitled “at the option of himself or his representatives” to a share of the profits attributable to the use of his share of the firm’s property “or to interest at the rate of six per cent per annum” on it. Section 46 repeats the word three more times — on dissolution “every partner or his representative” may have the property applied to the firm’s debts and the surplus distributed “among the partners or their representatives”, a right asserted against the people in possession. Four mentions, and the Act defines “representative” nowhere and prescribes no procedure, so a household travels two steps: establish the marriage, then establish through succession law that it makes her his representative. Also quotes section 35 (the estate is not liable for acts after the death where contract keeps the firm alive) and the proviso to s.37 (a buy-out option “duly exercised” ends the profit share, but a partner who does not comply “in all material respects” is “liable to account”), with the point stated plainly that registering a marriage changes nothing at the firm — no partner told, no deed amended, no GST touched | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Nehru Place & Chirag Dilli |
| Jaffrabad, Maujpur, Welcome, Brahmpuri, Kardampuri and Babarpur — eight-foot lanes, five storeys on a room-sized plot, and a belt where small suits are a constant fact of life. Four earlier pages on this site said that a statute hands a dead person’s rights to his legal representative and never defines the words; this is the law that does. Section 2(11) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908: a legal representative is “a person who in law represents the estate of a deceased person, and includes any person who intermeddles with the estate of the deceased” — wider than “heir”, inclusive rather than exhaustive. Then Order XXII. Rule 1 reassures: “The death of a plaintiff or defendant shall not cause the suit to abate if the right to sue survives.” Rule 3(1) is the catch — the Court acts “on an application made in that behalf”, so somebody must apply, and it must be the legal representative. Rule 3(2) is the consequence: “Where within the time limited by law no application is made… the suit shall abate”, with the defendant’s costs recoverable “from the estate of the deceased plaintiff”. Rule 9(1) makes it permanent — “no fresh suit shall be brought on the same cause of action” — with only the narrow route in Rule 9(2) for a person “claiming to be the legal representative” who proves sufficient cause. And Rule 5: where it is disputed who the legal representative is, “such question shall be determined by the Court”, its proviso allowing a subordinate Court to be directed “to try the question” on evidence. A certificate wins nothing; it keeps who-she-is from becoming a trial inside the case. The page deliberately does not state the limitation period — Order XXII fixes none, and a number taken off a website is how claims are lost | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Jaffrabad & Maujpur |
| A worker dies mid-month and the wages he had already earned were not yet due — section 25A of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 sends them to his nominee or else “to the prescribed authority”, after which the employer is discharged; and the Act defines “employed person” to include the legal representative of a deceased employed person, so under section 15(2) a widow who can establish that position applies as “such person himself” instead of asking the authority’s permission to apply at all | Arya Samaj Court Marriage Inderpuri & Naraina |
| What an Arya Samaj mandir can and cannot do — it performs the ceremony but does not keep the State’s register. Section 7(2) of the Hindu Marriage Act: the marriage “becomes complete and binding when the seventh step is taken”. Section 8(5): validity “shall in no way be affected by the omission to make the entry”, so an unregistered marriage is valid and nobody may frighten you. But section 8(4) makes the government register “open for inspection”, “admissible as evidence” and the source of certified extracts on application — which a mandir’s own register is not. Section 8 quoted in full, and no list of other mandirs published or ranked | Arya Samaj Mandir in Delhi |
| “Court marriage registration” means three different things in Delhi. Hindu Marriage Act s.8 — recording a wedding you already had, no notice, ages 21 and 18, two witnesses, and the register is only “admissible as evidence” (s.8(4)). Special Marriage Act Chapter III (ss.15–18) — registering an existing marriage of any year, where s.13(2) makes the certificate “conclusive evidence”, but s.16 imposes thirty days’ public notice even on an old marriage, s.15(d) requires both parties to have completed twenty-one, and three witnesses sign. Or a fresh Special Marriage Act marriage. Also covers s.18 (children “always to have been” legitimate), s.24(2) (registration can be declared of no effect) and s.21A, which switches off the ss.19 and 21 succession warning where both parties profess the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion | Court Marriage Registration in Delhi |
| SDM registration end to end — which office, the 60-day rule, the appointment, what the government charges | SDM Marriage Registration Delhi |
| An office asking for something with no basis — the escalation ladder and the RTI timelines | Mayur Vihar Phase 2 |
| How to check whether a mandir is genuine before you go, and what "registered" really means | Arya Samaj Mandir Near Me |
| Which state your registration belongs in — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh or Haryana | Venue Guide, Delhi NCR |
| Nikah, nikahnama, mahr, and Muslim marriage registration | Muslim Nikah, Delhi |
| The same material in Hindi | हिंदी गाइड |
Every figure and every clause on this page is from a primary source, and we would rather name them than ask you to take our word for it.
Delhi Revenue Department, marriage-registration page — the ₹100 Hindu Marriage Act fee deposited with the Marriage Clerk, the ₹15 Special Marriage Act solemnisation fee deposited with the cashier of the District, the document lists, the three witnesses under the SMA, the 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. counter hours, the "normally within 15 days" and "normally within 60 days" service norms, and the instruction that the application goes to the SDM in whose jurisdiction any of the husband or wife resides.
The Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 — Order 4(a) sixty days excluding the day of the final ceremony; Order 4(b) the requisite fee of two hundred rupees; Order 4(d) two witnesses who certify to the solemnisation; Order 6 condonation of a further sixty days on an additional five hundred rupees; Order 7 a penalty of one thousand rupees, remittable by the ADM or DM; Order 8 that registration under the Order "will not tantamount to validity of marriage"; and Orders 3 and 5 on concurrent jurisdiction.
The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — Section 5 (the five conditions), Section 7 (customary rites of either party; saptapadi), Section 8 (registration), Section 11 (void marriages), Section 12 (voidable marriages).
The Special Marriage Act, 1954 — the notice and its display, Section 4 (conditions and therefore the only valid grounds of objection), and Sections 19, 21 and 21A on severance and succession.
The Arya Marriage Validation Act, 1937.
A note on figures. Government fees and office practice change, and different offices work to their current schedule. Where a figure here differs from what you are told at the counter, the counter is what you pay — and you should get a receipt for it. Nothing on this page is a substitute for advice from an advocate on your own facts, and we are a marriage service, not a law firm.
Then it is probably a question about your file rather than about the law, and those are answered faster on the phone than by any page. Tell us your ages and what your documents say about them, your religions, whether either of you has been married before, where each of you actually lives and what your papers show, whether either of you is across the Uttar Pradesh or Haryana line, and whether anything is going on at home.
Call or WhatsApp +91 8376863962. Hindi or English. The call is free, nobody will push you, and if the honest answer is that you should fix a document first or wait a few months, that is what you will hear.
All-India steps and state differences.
Read →How many, who can be, what to bring.
Read →Section-by-section legal comparison.
Read →Which route is right for you.
Read →Marriage guide.
Read →SMA details.
Read →Confidential.
Read →Required list.
Read →Pricing.
Read →Free consultation.
Read →Expert articles on every marriage topic — read before you decide
Complete 2026 process from notice to certificate.
Read Article →Full checklist — Aadhaar, affidavits, witnesses.
Read Article →Transparent breakdown — official + service costs.
Read Article →Your rights, family pressure, police protection.
Read Article →Apostille, Embassy NOC, spouse visa explained.
Read Article →Honest truth about Arya Samaj same-day option.
Read Article →