Court Marriage Delhi

First, work out which of the two things you actually need

Almost every wasted week in this process comes from one confusion, so it is worth clearing before anything else. There are two entirely different legal acts, both of which people call "court marriage", and they have different timelines, different fees, different witness rules and different certificates.

The first is solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. Here the state creates the marriage. You file a notice, it is published for thirty days, and on or after the thirty-first day you are married in front of a Marriage Officer with three witnesses. There is no ceremony, no priest and no religion involved. This is the route for couples who have not had a wedding, or who are of different faiths, or who simply want a civil marriage.

The second is registration of a marriage that has already happened. Your wedding took place - with a pandit, at an Arya Samaj mandir, in a gurdwara, by nikah - and the marriage already exists in law. Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 says that where the rites include saptapadi, the marriage is complete and binding on the seventh step. What you need now is the government certificate, under section 8 of that Act read with the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014. Where the file is complete this takes days, not a month.

So the first question is not "how do I do court marriage". It is: has the wedding already happened? If yes, you are registering, the thirty-day notice does not apply to you, and most of what you have read online about waiting a month is not your problem. If no, you are solemnising, and the thirty days are unavoidable.

Our route decision guide walks through this in four questions if you want to be certain before you spend anything.

What the government actually charges - the figures nobody publishes correctly

This is the most misreported fact in the entire subject, and it is worth being precise because the gap between the truth and what is commonly quoted is enormous.

The Delhi Revenue Department publishes the figures on its own marriage registration page. For solemnisation of marriage under the Special Marriage Act, its words are: a "Fee of Rs.15/- is to be deposited with cashier of District". For registration of marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act: a "Fee of Rs.100/- is to be deposited with Marriage Clerk".

Fifteen rupees. One hundred rupees. Those are the department's own published figures for the two things.

Alongside them sits a third instrument. Clause 4 of the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 requires the joint application in Form A to be accompanied by "the requisite fee of Rupees Two Hundred". That Order is what makes registration compulsory for every marriage solemnised in Delhi, whatever the parties' religion, and Rs 200 is its fee.

All three figures are genuine. They belong to different procedures, and your receipt will say which one you paid. What none of them is, is a four-figure or five-figure "government fee". If you have been told the government charges two or three thousand rupees for a court marriage, you have been told something that does not appear anywhere in the department's published material.

That does not mean the whole process costs fifteen rupees. Affidavits need stamp paper and notarisation. Photographs cost money. A certified copy of a divorce decree carries a court copying fee. And a professional charges for professional work. Those are all real costs - they are simply not government fees, and an honest quote separates them. Our fees page itemises the difference, and our full cost breakdown goes line by line.

One four-figure government charge does exist and it is worth knowing about so you are not confused by it. Clause 10 of the Delhi Order 2014 provides an optional priority facility for registration in case of urgency, on payment of an additional fee of Rupees Ten Thousand. It is real, it is voluntary, it is receipted - and it relates to registration. It does not shorten the thirty-day notice period, because nothing can.

Who can marry: the four conditions, and nothing else

Section 4 of the Special Marriage Act sets four conditions for a marriage under it. There are only four, and it is worth reading the list twice, because a great deal of what families and even some offices treat as requirements simply is not in it.

Neither party has a spouse living. Both parties are capable of giving valid consent - the section deals separately with unsoundness of mind, with a mental disorder of such a kind or extent as to be unfit for marriage, and with recurrent attacks of insanity. The man has completed twenty-one years and the woman eighteen. And the parties are not within the degrees of prohibited relationship, unless a custom governing at least one of them permits the marriage.

Now what is not a condition. Parental consent is not. Caste is not. Religion is not - the Act exists precisely so that two people of different faiths may marry without either of them converting. Citizenship is not; a foreign national may marry under this Act. Income, housing, employment and the opinions of relatives are not conditions and never have been.

That matters practically, because an objection to your marriage can only be made on one of those four grounds. Section 7 permits any person to object within thirty days of publication of the notice - but only "on the ground that it would contravene one or more of the conditions specified in section 4". Family disapproval is not a ground. An objection that alleges nothing within section 4 has to fail.

On the registration route, the ages are the same - twenty-one and eighteen under section 5(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act - and the same prohibited-degree rule applies, with the additional Hindu-law condition that the parties must not be sapindas of each other. That sapinda rule catches more people than they expect, and we set it out properly on our prohibited degrees and sapinda page.

• s.4(a) - neither party has a spouse living
• s.4(b) - both capable of giving valid consent
• s.4(c) - man 21, woman 18, completed on the date of the marriage
• s.4(d) - not within the degrees of prohibited relationship, subject to the custom proviso
• NOT a condition: parental consent, caste, religion, citizenship, income, or anyone's approval

The thirty-day notice, day by day

If you are on the Special Marriage Act route, this is the part that governs your calendar. It is far less mysterious than it looks once you see the shape of it.

Before day zero. At least one of you must already have lived in the district for thirty days. Section 5 requires the notice to go to the Marriage Officer of the district "in which at least one of the parties to the marriage has resided for a period of not less than thirty days immediately preceding the date on which such notice is given". Those thirty days sit before you file - you cannot accumulate them during the notice period, and this is the single most common planning mistake we see. The Delhi Revenue Department's own SMA checklist asks for "documentary evidence regarding stay in Delhi of one of the parties for more than 30 days". If you rent, our residence proof guide for tenants sets out what actually works.

Day zero. You file the notice, in the form specified in the Second Schedule, signed by both of you. The Marriage Officer enters it in the Marriage Notice Book, which section 6(1) keeps open to inspection, and publishes it under section 6(2) by affixing a copy in a conspicuous place in the office.

Days one to thirty. The objection window under section 7. In the overwhelming majority of cases nothing at all happens and there is nothing for you to do.

Day thirty-one onwards. Solemnisation. Section 11 requires you and three witnesses to sign a declaration in the form in the Third Schedule in the presence of the Marriage Officer, who countersigns it. Section 12 allows this at his office, or within a reasonable distance from it at a place you choose, subject to the conditions the Act prescribes.

Immediately after. Section 13(1) requires the certificate to be entered in the Marriage Certificate Book in the form in the Fourth Schedule, signed by you and the three witnesses. Section 13(2) makes that certificate conclusive evidence that a marriage under the Act has been solemnised - which is the strongest evidential status any marriage document in India carries.

So the honest answer to "how long does court marriage take in Delhi" is: thirty-one days minimum from the notice, with thirty days of residence already behind you when you file. Anybody promising less on this route is promising something the statute does not permit.

Section 14: the deadline almost nobody is told about

This provision costs real couples real months every year, and we have never seen it mentioned on a competing page.

Section 14 of the Special Marriage Act provides that where a marriage is not solemnised within three calendar months from the date on which the notice was given, "the notice and all other proceedings arising there from shall be deemed to have lapsed, and no Marriage Officer shall solemnize the marriage until a new notice has been given in the manner laid down in this Act".

Read the shape of that. Three months, counted from the date of the notice - not from the end of the thirty days. So you have a thirty-day wait followed by roughly two months in which the marriage must actually take place. Miss it and the notice is not merely stale; it has lapsed, and a fresh notice restarts the entire thirty-day period and the objection window with it.

Nothing arrives in the post to warn you. Couples discover it when they return to the office in the fourth month with a date fixed and are told to start again.

It happens easily. A notice is filed in March for a wedding planned in late April. A grandparent falls ill and the family postpones. A posting moves, or a visa interview is scheduled. By the time everyone is free it is July, and a notice given in March lapsed in June.

The rule to work by is simple: file the notice when you are reasonably confident you can marry within three months of filing it - not the moment you decide to marry. And if a postponement pushes you towards the edge, ask the office where you stand before the three months run rather than after. Section 14 also protects you where the delay was the process's own fault: where an appeal was filed under section 8(2), the three months run from the district court's decision. Our full guide to the notice period works through it.

"Will a notice be sent to our house?" - the answer, with the authority

For couples whose families do not know, this is the highest-anxiety question in the entire subject, and it deserves a proper answer rather than a reassurance.

Start with what the Act itself requires, because that part is real. Section 6(2) requires the Marriage Officer to publish the notice by affixing a copy in a conspicuous place in his office. Section 6(3) provides that where neither party is permanently residing within the local limits of that district, a copy is sent to the Marriage Officer of the district in which each party is permanently residing, for publication in that office. Those are statutory and they happen.

What is different - and what people are actually asking about - is a notice posted to the couple's own residential address. That is not required by the Act, and in Delhi it is prohibited.

The Delhi High Court directed by an order dated 8 April 2009 that Marriage Officers refrain from sending notices to the residences of applicants under Chapter II of the Special Marriage Act. The Delhi government followed it with guidance issued on 18 September 2009.

And when an SDM did it anyway, the High Court said so plainly. In Parveen Bano v. Chandra Shekhar, SDM South West, decided on 12 August 2021, Justice Najmi Waziri observed: "Prima facie, the court is of the view that the respondent has committed contempt of court." The Court framed the reason in terms of consequences - notices of that kind "could jeopardize the plans of the applicants or become a cause for threat to their lives or limb".

So if you are told a notice will go to your home address, you are not asking for a favour when you object. You are pointing to a standing direction of the High Court of this jurisdiction, a government circular implementing it, and a contempt finding for its breach. Say it calmly, in writing, and ask for the position to be recorded. Our page on what to do when an office gets it wrong sets out the escalation.

Be honest with yourselves about section 6(3), though. If neither of you permanently resides in the district where you file, copies of the notice go to the districts where you each permanently reside, for publication there. For a couple who moved to Delhi from another state, that is often how a family learns of it. It is not a reason to abandon the route; it is a reason to plan around it rather than hope. If publicity is a genuine risk and you are both Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or Sikh, a ceremony followed by registration involves no notice, no publication and no objection stage at all - and that is usually the better answer. Where there is an actual threat, see our protection page.

"Same-day court marriage" - what is true and what is sold

You will see this advertised constantly. Here is the line between the honest version and the claim that cannot be delivered.

A same-day marriage under the Special Marriage Act is impossible. Section 5 requires the notice; section 6 requires publication; section 7 gives any person thirty days to object; section 11 provides for solemnisation, which cannot precede the expiry of that period. And section 46 makes a Marriage Officer who knowingly and wilfully solemnises a marriage within thirty days of publication punishable with imprisonment which may extend to one year, or a fine, or both. That is the reason no officer bends: it is a criminal offence for him. Anyone promising a same-day Special Marriage Act marriage is promising something an officer would commit an offence by doing.

Fast registration of a marriage that has already happened is real. If your ceremony took place and both of you are Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or Sikh, registration under section 8 of the Hindu Marriage Act with the Delhi Order 2014 can be a matter of days, and some offices complete it the same day where the file is in order. That is a different legal act producing a different document, and it is entirely legitimate.

So when a service advertises "same-day court marriage", what is usually being offered is an Arya Samaj or temple ceremony on the day, followed by registration. That can be a perfectly good option - our Arya Samaj page explains it - but you should know what you are buying, because the certificate it produces is not a Special Marriage Act certificate and the two are not interchangeable for every purpose.

The Rs 10,000 "tatkal" fee is genuine but misunderstood. Clause 10 of the Delhi Order 2014 offers an optional priority facility for registration in case of urgency. It is a government fee against a receipt. It relates to registration and it does not shorten a statutory notice period - no Order can override an Act. Our tatkal page covers what it does and does not buy.

Two other claims to walk away from. Registration without both parties present - clause 4(d) of the Delhi Order requires the parties to appear in person, and section 11 requires them to sign the declaration before the officer; a power of attorney does not substitute. And a certificate without a ceremony - the Supreme Court held in Dolly Rani v. Manish Kumar Chanchal (2024) that a Hindu marriage requires the ceremonies under section 7 to have actually been performed and that a certificate cannot create a marriage that never took place. Our guide to spotting a false promise lists the rest.

Documents: exactly what the Delhi Revenue Department lists

Most checklists online are somebody's recollection. These are the department's own lists, and they differ by route - which is why bringing the wrong one is such a common reason for a wasted morning.

Two points before the lists, because they cause more returns than anything else.

Proof of date of birth is a short list. The department names three documents: the matriculation certificate, the passport, or the birth certificate. Aadhaar is not on it. Aadhaar is excellent identity and address evidence and it belongs in your file - just not as your proof of age. If neither of you holds one of the three, that is a weeks-long problem rather than a morning problem, and our age proof guide explains the delayed birth registration route under section 13(3) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969.

Proof of residence is also a named list: voter I-card, ration card, driving licence, or passport, self-attested.

And check that your own documents agree with each other before you go. A name spelt two ways across two documents, or a date of birth that differs, is the commonest reason a file stalls - and it is something you can find at your own table tonight. Our document mismatch guide covers the five classic ones and how to fix each.

A full consolidated checklist for every route is on our documents page.

Witnesses: the rules genuinely differ by route

Competing pages contradict each other on this, sometimes within the same page. The two routes have different requirements and both are written down.

For solemnisation under the Special Marriage Act, section 11 requires three witnesses, present at the solemnisation, who sign the declaration in the Third Schedule form before the Marriage Officer along with the parties. The same three sign the certificate under section 13(1). The section imposes no condition that they be Delhi residents.

For registration under the Delhi Order 2014, clause 4(d) requires two witnesses "who shall certify to the solemnization of such marriage and bearing proof of permanent resident of Delhi". Two conditions in one sentence: they must have been at your wedding and be able to say so, and they must hold Delhi permanent residence proof.

That second requirement catches couples whose families travelled in for the wedding and went home. The people who attended have no Delhi residence proof; the people with Delhi residence proof did not attend. Solve it before the wedding, not after: pick two people from your Delhi life who will be there anyway - a colleague, a neighbour, a landlord, a relative settled here - make sure they attend, make sure they appear in the photographs, and check what residence document each of them holds.

There is no bar on a witness being a relative. Parents, siblings and cousins are all fine. What matters is presence and, on the registration route, the residence document. Our witness rules page and the detailed witness guide go further, including what a witness is actually signing.

• SMA solemnisation: three witnesses, present at the solemnisation, signing the Third Schedule declaration - s.11
• SMA: no Delhi residence condition on the witnesses in the section
• Registration: two witnesses who attended the ceremony AND hold Delhi permanent residence proof - cl.4(d)
• Relatives may be witnesses on both routes
• Bring the witnesses' own identity and address documents on the day

Which office: Delhi's district map changed on 1 January 2026

This is where most published guidance is now simply out of date, and where going to the wrong counter costs you a morning.

The Delhi government notified a reorganisation of the National Capital Territory's revenue districts on 25 December 2025, with effect from 1 January 2026. Eleven districts became thirteen. Thirty-three sub-divisions became thirty-nine. Three districts were created - Old Delhi, Central North and Outer North - and Shahdara ceased to be a district, its name surviving as a sub-division of North East.

Seven sub-division names that everyone used last year are not on the new list at all: Chanakyapuri, Vasant Vihar, Civil Lines, Kotwali, Alipur, Saraswati Vihar and Kanjhawala. Four others changed district: Patel Nagar moved from West to Central, Sadar Bazar from Central to Old Delhi, Narela from North to Outer North, and Model Town from North to Central North.

Nothing on the ground moved. Every locality is exactly where it was. What changed is the administrative heading above it - and since the jurisdiction rules are written in terms of districts, you need the current one.

Where your file goes. The Revenue Department's published rule for registration is residence-based: apply to the office in whose territorial jurisdiction either applicant resides. Where the marriage was solemnised in Delhi but the applicants do not live in Delhi, the application goes to the office in whose jurisdiction the marriage was solemnised. On the Special Marriage Act route, section 5 sends the notice to the Marriage Officer of the district where one of you has thirty days' residence.

And nobody can be stranded. Clause 5 of the Delhi Order 2014 gives the Marriage Officer of the district of solemnisation jurisdiction, and then adds that "the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (Head Quarter), Additional District Magistrate and District Magistrate of Delhi shall have concurrent jurisdiction over entire Delhi to register any marriage solemnized in Delhi within any Revenue District of Union Territory of Delhi". Three named authorities, the whole NCT. Whatever confusion exists about a sub-division, there is always an office with jurisdiction.

We have written a page for every one of the thirty-nine sub-divisions. Find yours below, or start from the full area index. The complete district map is set out as a reference table on our 2026 district map page.

If somebody objects

Only the Special Marriage Act route has an objection stage, and it is far more constrained than the rumour suggests.

Section 7 allows any person to object within thirty days of publication - but only on the ground that the marriage would contravene one or more of the four conditions in section 4. Disapproval is not a ground. Caste is not. Religion is not. The absence of parental consent is not.

Section 8 then binds the officer to a clock: "the Marriage Officer shall not take more than thirty days from the date of the objection for the purpose of inquiring into the matter of the objection and arriving at a decision". So an objection buys the objector a defined and short period, at the end of which a decision has to exist. It is not an indefinite veto.

Section 9(1) gives the Marriage Officer, for that inquiry, all the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 - witnesses summoned and examined on oath, documents required, evidence on affidavit. That cuts in your favour if you have prepared: an allegation about your age, or about a subsisting marriage, or about a relationship, is a factual claim that has to be made good in a proceeding with real evidentiary rules.

If the objection is upheld and the marriage refused, section 8(2) gives either of you thirty days to appeal to the district court, whose decision is final.

And section 9(2) is the provision worth knowing: where an objection "is not reasonable and has not been made in good faith", the Marriage Officer may impose costs by way of compensation up to a thousand rupees and award them to you. The money is small; the recorded finding that a named person objected in bad faith is not, and it is worth asking for where it is deserved. Our objections page walks through the whole machinery.

Special situations, answered briefly

Most couples fall into one of these, and each has a page of its own if you need the detail.

One or both of you was married before. The previous marriage must have ended before the new one - not merely been filed for. Section 15 of the Hindu Marriage Act permits remarriage once there is no right of appeal, or the appeal time has expired without an appeal, or an appeal was dismissed; and section 28(4) sets that appeal period at thirty days from the date of the decree. Marry inside that window and the second marriage is void. Bring a certified copy of the decree, sealed and signed - not a photocopy, and not the judgment. See when you can legally remarry and our second marriage page.

Widowed. No waiting period at all under either Act. The death certificate is the document.

Different religions. The Special Marriage Act is designed for exactly this and neither of you converts. Our Special Marriage Act page and conversion page set out why conversion is unnecessary and often unwise.

One of you is a foreign national or an NRI. Nationality is not a section 4 condition. You will need a valid passport and visa and, where required, a no-impediment certificate from the relevant embassy - start that early, as some missions take weeks. If one party genuinely cannot travel to India, the appearance cannot be delegated and the Foreign Marriage Act, 1969 is usually the better route: see marriage when one partner is abroad, NRI registration and apostille and visa use.

You live outside Delhi but married here, or married outside Delhi but live here. Both are workable and the answers are different. See married in Delhi, living elsewhere and married outside Delhi, living here - the second explains Chapter III of the Special Marriage Act, a route almost nobody knows about.

Your marriage was by nikah, or in a church, or by Anand Karaj. Clause 1(b) of the Delhi Order extends compulsory registration to all marriages solemnised in Delhi "irrespective of caste creed and religion". See Muslim marriage registration, which marriage law applies to you, and Anand Karaj registration.

Your family is opposed and you are worried about safety. Two adults need nobody's permission - Lata Singh (2006), Shafin Jahan (2018) and Shakti Vahini (2018) say so, and the Delhi High Court applies them routinely. Document any threats as they happen and see our protection page.

After the certificate

The certificate is not the end of the process; it is the document the next fifteen years of your life will keep asking for. A little care now saves a great deal later.

Read it before you leave the office. Check both names letter by letter against the matriculation certificate or passport, check the date of the marriage, check both dates of birth, check fathers' names and addresses. Section 49 of the Special Marriage Act lets the Marriage Officer correct an error in an entry only "within one month next after the discovery of such error", by a marginal entry that does not alter the original. That window is short and it is designed for corrections made while everyone is still present.

Take more than one certified copy. Section 47 of the Special Marriage Act and section 8(4) of the Hindu Marriage Act both entitle you to certified extracts on application and on payment of the prescribed fee. Passport offices, banks, insurers and consulates each tend to keep the copy you give them.

Photograph it the same day and email yourself a scan. Far more people need a replacement because a document was lost than for any other reason.

Where it will be asked for: passport spouse endorsement, spouse and dependant visas, joint bank accounts and nominations, joint home loans, employer medical cover and gratuity records, provident fund and family pension, joint property purchase, and eventually succession. Our page on what the certificate proves covers duplicates and corrections, the name change page covers Passport Seva and the Gazette route, and this page deals with fixing an error after the fact.

One thing the certificate does not do: it does not change anybody's name. No Indian law requires a spouse to change her name, and where a name is being changed the certificate is a supporting document in a separate process rather than the operative one.

What actually goes wrong - and how to stop it

In our experience almost every returned file falls into one of these, and almost none of them is a legal problem. They are all preventable at your own table the night before.

A photocopy that has not been self-attested. A photograph nobody signed. An Aadhaar presented as proof of age instead of one of the three documents the department lists. A name spelt differently on two documents, or a date of birth that differs. A residence proof that is not on the department's list. Only one party attending. A witness who did not attend the ceremony and cannot certify to it. A witness without proof of permanent residence in Delhi. A divorce decree produced as a photocopy rather than a certified copy sealed by the court, or the judgment produced instead of the decree. No photographs of the ceremony and no officiant's certificate. And arriving at 12.45 when the counter closes at 1.00.

The genuinely legal problems are rarer and of a different kind - an earlier marriage that has not actually ended, a relationship within the prohibited degrees, an age below the statutory minimum, or a consent that is not real. Those need advice rather than a checklist, and they are the four things we check first when a couple comes to us.

Our walkthrough of the day itself lists the fifteen commonest causes of a returned file in the order they arise.

• Self-attest every photocopy and sign every photograph
• Use a matriculation certificate, passport or birth certificate as age proof - not Aadhaar
• Compare both parties' names and dates of birth across every document, tonight
• Confirm your witnesses attended and hold the right documents
• Bring a certified copy of any decree, sealed and signed by the court
• Both parties attend, in person, on the day
• Reach the office by 9.30 a.m. - the counter closes at 1.00 p.m.
• Read the certificate before you leave the building

How we work, and what to send us first

We are a Delhi legal documentation practice and court marriage is the core of what we do. The most useful thing we offer is not speed - nobody can lawfully compress a statutory notice - it is getting the route and the file right the first time, because the expensive part of this process is doing it twice.

What we do, concretely. We settle which of the two routes your situation actually calls for, which alone decides your timeline and most of your paperwork. We find the problems before the counter does - the name mismatch, the Aadhaar used as age proof, the decree whose appeal period had not expired, the witness who cannot meet clause 4(d). We prepare the file, the forms and the affidavits properly. We tell you the real timeline rather than the one you want to hear. And we say no to what cannot be done, which is the part that actually protects you.

What it costs is quoted to you as a figure, in writing, before anything is filed, and separately from the government fee - so you can always see which is which and you always get the government receipt. That is the test we would tell you to apply to anybody in this field, including us.

To get a straight answer quickly, send us four things on WhatsApp: both ages, whether a wedding ceremony has already taken place, whether either of you was married before, and which locality in Delhi you live in. That is enough for us to tell you the route, the realistic timeline and what your file needs - usually the same day, and at no cost.

If you would rather read first, start with the documents checklist, the fees page, or the page for your own sub-division.