Court Marriage is solemnizing the marriage as per the law to give it legal validity. The marriage must be between two persons of the opposite gender where the male must be at least 21 years of age and for the female, it is 18 years. Court marriages as the name suggests are the marriages that take place in the court in front of the Registrar. Court Marriage is basically legally marrying someone of the opposite sex.

You may ask then what about the traditional and expensive marriages in India, then those also need to get their marriage registered and get the marriage registration certificate in order to legalize their marriages.

A court marriage is conducted in the presence of the Marriage Registrar. Also, people of any religion and caste can marry each other provided that they are not related as per the forbidden degrees of the wedding. An individual can marry even a foreigner if he/she has Indian nationality. A court marriage allows Indians to marry foreign individuals given that they are not married in their own countries. But there are different laws to govern them. Let us have a look at them.

Laws that Govern Court Marriages

In India majorly two laws i.e. Hindu Marriage Act and Special Marriage Act govern the court marriages in India.

⦿ Hindu Marriage Act, 1955: The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 applies to all forms of Hinduism and also recognizes offshoots such as Sikhs, Jain, and Buddhists. This Act also applies to anyone who is a permanent resident in India and is not a Muslim, Jew, Christian, or Parsi by religion.

⦿ Special Marriage Act, 1954: Whereas, the Special Marriage Act, 1954 basically deals with inter-caste and inter-religion marriages and therefore, applies to marriages among Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jain, and Buddhists. This Act extends not only to the Indian citizens belonging to different castes and religions but also to the Indian nationals living abroad. This act applies to every state of India, except the state of Jammu & Kashmir.

Now, before proceeding with the procedure part it is better to know the documents that you will need in the whole process of Court Marriage. As per the Special Marriage Act,1955 the documents needed for the partners are explained below. Since the Special Marriage Act allows one partner to be a foreigner, the documents needed in that case are quite different.

The charges for court marriages change accordingly to the state where you are willing to do court marriage. But here at Litem, we offer you the best and competitive charges for court marriages(without any hidden charges).

The overall procedure for court marriage can be quite simple if you have experienced and qualified advocates like Litem on your side. You can have a look at the steps involved in court marriages to have a clearer image of its proceedings. Let s start this:

However, marriage-court-registration all seem to be quite similar. But do not be mistaken. Marriage Registration and Court Marriages are two diffrent terms with completely different meanings.

Marriage registration on one hand defines a state where both the parties/couple are already married and seek to legalize their marriage in the eyes of law through registering their marriage. On the contrary, Court marriages actually take place in the presence of the Marriage Registrar and do not need to prove the legality of their marriage.

Court Marriages take nearly 30-days prior notice to the registrar where in Marriage Registrations, no such notice is needed.

Since the sole purpose of both the terms is the same, we mean legalizing the marriage in the eyes of law is the ultimate goal of marriage registration and court marriages.