Court Marriage, Arya Samaj Marriage and Registration in Delhi NCR

Start with one question, not with a service

Almost every couple who calls us opens with the same sentence: 'we want court marriage'. In about half of those calls, court marriage is not what they need. They have already had a temple wedding and need registration. Or they are both Hindu, in a hurry, and an Arya Samaj ceremony plus registration will get them a valid certificate faster than a 30-day notice will. Or one of them was married before and the real question is whether the appeal window on the divorce decree has closed.

So the honest first step is a question, not a product: has a marriage ceremony already taken place between the two of you? If yes, you are in registration territory. If no, you are choosing between solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act and a ceremony followed by registration. Everything else follows from that.

What the government actually charges - and why you keep seeing bigger numbers

This is the single most misreported fact in this market, so here it is with its source attached.

The Delhi Revenue Department's own published procedure states, for solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act: 'Fee of Rs.15/- is to be deposited with cashier of District'. For registration under the Hindu Marriage Act it states: 'Fee of Rs.100/- is to be deposited with Marriage Clerk'. Clause 4 of the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 sets a further fee of Rs 200 for registration under that Order.

Fifteen rupees. One hundred rupees. Two hundred rupees. Those are the government's numbers. If you have been quoted Rs 2,000, Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000 as a 'government fee', you have been quoted somebody's service charge with a government label on it.

That does not make a professional fee wrong. Preparing a file properly, drafting affidavits, catching a spelling mismatch before it costs you a month, arranging witnesses, coordinating an appointment - that is real work and it is reasonable to be paid for it. What is not reasonable is hiding it inside the word 'government'. We quote our fee separately, in writing, before we start, and we tell you which counter to pay the government's fifteen or hundred rupees at.

Our full breakdown of what changes the professional figure - route, prior marriage, outstation documents, whether an advocate's drafting is needed - is on the fees and timeline page.

The 30-day notice, day by day - and the deadline nobody warns you about

If you are going the Special Marriage Act route, the whole timeline is governed by a clock you cannot argue with. Here is how it actually runs in a Delhi SDM office.

You file the notice of intended marriage under section 5 with the Marriage Officer of the district where at least one of you has resided for not less than thirty days. The officer enters it in the Marriage Notice Book under section 6 and publishes it on the office notice board. Anyone with a lawful objection under section 7 has thirty days. If no objection is filed, the marriage is solemnised - three witnesses, declarations signed before the officer - and the certificate is issued under section 13.

Now the part that costs couples an entire month. Section 14 provides that if the marriage is not solemnised within three months from the date of the notice, the notice and all proceedings arising from it lapse, and a fresh notice must be given. Couples file the notice, travel for work or a family function, come back in the fourth month expecting to sign, and find they are starting from zero. We have not found this section mentioned on a single competing page in Delhi.

"Will a notice come to our house?" - the question we are asked most

For couples marrying against family opposition this is not a procedural question. It is the whole thing. So here is the position with authority, rather than reassurance.

The Special Marriage Act requires the notice to be published - entered in the Marriage Notice Book and displayed at the Marriage Officer's office, which is a public record anyone may inspect under section 6. It does not require the notice to be posted to the parties' homes.

By an order dated 8 April 2009, the Delhi High Court directed Marriage Officers in Delhi not to send notices to the residential addresses of the parties. That direction has teeth: in Parveen Bano v. Chandra Shekhar, SDM South West (12 August 2021), the High Court treated the despatch of such a notice to a party's home as prima facie contempt of the earlier order.

What this means in practice: the notice is displayed at the office and is inspectable there, and a determined family member who knows exactly which sub-division to visit could see it. But a notice should not arrive at your door, and if one does, that is a matter you can take up - it is not something you have to accept quietly. If safety is a live concern for you, read our page on police protection for couples before you file anything, not after.

"Same-day court marriage" - what is real and what is being sold

Search for urgent marriage help in Delhi and you will be offered a one-day court marriage. Here is why that specific promise cannot be kept.

Section 46 of the Special Marriage Act provides that a Marriage Officer who solemnises a marriage in contravention of the Act's conditions is liable to imprisonment and fine. The 30-day notice is one of those conditions. So the person being asked to break the rule is not risking a refund - he is risking his liberty and his post. No fee changes that arithmetic.

What is real: an Arya Samaj ceremony can be performed the same day for a Hindu couple who meets the conditions in section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. That is a genuine marriage. But the institution's certificate is not a government certificate - the document banks, passport offices and embassies want is the government registration under section 8 of the Hindu Marriage Act, and that is a separate step you must complete afterwards. Our page on Arya Samaj certificate validity explains exactly what each document does and does not do.

So when speed genuinely matters, the honest answer is: the ceremony can be fast, the registration can be efficient, and the Special Marriage Act cannot be rushed. Anyone telling you otherwise is describing a different thing or misleading you.

Documents - and the two mistakes that cause most rejections

Requirements differ by route, but the failure modes are identical, and they are almost always avoidable.

Mistake one: a name that does not match across documents. Aadhaar says 'Sunil Kumar', the school certificate says 'Sunil Kr.', the passport says 'Sunil Kumar Yadav'. At the counter that is a query, and a query is a fresh appointment. Fixing it before submission takes an affidavit; fixing it after submission takes weeks.

Mistake two: an address proof that does not establish the residence the office needs. For a Special Marriage Act notice, at least one party must have resided in the district for not less than thirty days, and the proof has to show it. A brand-new rent agreement dated last week does not.

Send us photographs of what you have on WhatsApp before you go anywhere. A pre-check costs you nothing and it is the single highest-value thing you can do with ten minutes.

Which office is yours - Delhi's map changed on 1 January 2026

Your file goes to the SDM sub-division covering where you live, and that map is not what it was. With effect from 1 January 2026, Delhi went from 11 districts and 33 sub-divisions to 13 districts and 39 sub-divisions. Three districts were created - Old Delhi, Central North and Outer North. Shahdara ceased to be a district and survives as a sub-division of North East. Seven sub-division names were dropped and four moved to a different district.

This matters because most guidance on the internet still describes the old map. If a page tells you to go to the Kanjhawala or Kotwali sub-division office, it was written before this change and has not been checked since.

We rewrote every one of our area pages against the current official directory. Each page tells you the sub-division, the district it now sits in, what that office asks for, and - where a sub-division was abolished - where a file from that locality goes now.

• Central - Karol Bagh, Patel Nagar
• Central North - Model Town, Shalimar Bagh, Shakur Basti
• East - Patparganj, Gandhi Nagar, Vishwas Nagar
• New Delhi - New Delhi, Delhi Cantonment
• North - Adarsh Nagar, Badli, Burari
• North East - Shahdara, Yamuna Vihar, Karawal Nagar, Gokalpur
• North West - Rohini, Kirari, Nangloi Jat
• Old Delhi - Sadar Bazar, Chandni Chowk
• Outer North - Narela, Bawana, Mundka
• South - Chhatarpur, Mehrauli, Malviya Nagar, Deoli
• South East - Jangpura, Kalkaji, Badarpur
• South West - Dwarka, Najafgarh, Matiala, Bijwasan
• West - Janakpuri, Rajouri Garden, Vikaspuri
• Not on the 2026 list - Kanjhawala, Kotwali, Alipur, Civil Lines, Saraswati Vihar, Chanakyapuri, Vasant Vihar - each page explains where that area's file goes now

Outside Delhi we cover Noida, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, where the procedure is broadly the same but the state rules and portals differ.

Situations that need a different answer

The standard route works for most couples. These are the ones where it does not, and each has its own page because the detail matters.

• One of you was married before. The question is not whether you are divorced - it is whether the decree is final and whether the appeal period has run, and what the decree actually says. Second marriage registration.
• You are from different faiths. The Special Marriage Act exists for exactly this and needs no conversion. If someone has told you conversion is required, read conversion for marriage before you agree to anything.
• One of you lives outside Delhi. Residence rules decide which office takes your file. Outstation couples.
• One of you is an NRI or a foreign national. Extra documents, and the certificate has to survive an embassy's scrutiny later. NRI marriage registration and apostille and visa use.
• You need witnesses and have none. Three for solemnisation, two for registration, and they must carry ID. Witness rules.
• Your family is opposed and you are worried about safety. Read police protection for couples first.
• Your certificate has a wrong spelling, or you have lost it. Correction and duplicate certificate.
• You want the inter-caste marriage incentive. Inter-caste marriage scheme.
• You are Muslim and need registration. Muslim marriage registration.

How to judge any marriage service in Delhi - including us

You are about to hand somebody your Aadhaar, your passport and, if you are marrying against family wishes, information that could put you at risk. Here is the test we would apply if we were the ones hiring.

Ask what the government fee is. If the answer is not Rs 15, Rs 100 or Rs 200 with a reason for which one applies, they either do not know or are blending their own charge into it.

Ask whether a court marriage can be done in one day. If the answer is yes, walk away. The correct answer names section 46.

Ask for the fee in writing, separated from the government fee, before paying. Then ask for a receipt.

Ask which sub-division your file goes to. If they name a sub-division that stopped existing on 1 January 2026, their information is at least a year stale.

Ask what happens if it is refused. A service that has thought about this will have an answer. One that has not will change the subject.

If an advocate is involved, ask for the enrolment number. You are entitled to know who is on your file, and a complaint about an advocate's conduct goes to the State Bar Council under section 35 of the Advocates Act, 1961.

Apply all six to us. We would rather be checked than trusted blindly - our editorial policy sets out where every fact on this site comes from, and our terms say in writing what we will and will not promise.

How we work

There is no queue, no form to fill and no payment before you know what you are paying for.

You send four things on WhatsApp. Both of your ages. Whether a ceremony has already taken place. Whether either of you was married before. Which area of Delhi you live in. That is enough for us to tell you which route you are on and roughly how long it will take.

We check your documents free. Photographs of what you have. We tell you what is missing, what will cause a query at the counter, and what needs an affidavit before submission rather than after.

We quote once, in writing. The professional fee for the agreed scope, separate from the government fee, before any work starts. If the scope changes we ask before doing the extra work.

We prepare, submit and follow up. Drafting, forms, appointment coordination, briefing you on what the officer will ask, and following the file until the certificate is in your hand. Follow-up is not billed again.

If we cannot help, we say so on the first call. Some cases do not meet the statutory conditions and no paperwork changes that. Some routes you can complete yourself in an afternoon, and we will tell you which those are.