Police Protection for Couples in Delhi

If the threat is happening right now

Before anything else on this page. If you or your partner are in immediate physical danger, being followed, or being held somewhere against your will, call 112. It is the pan-India emergency number and it reaches the police control room. Do that first.

Other numbers worth having in your phone: 1091, the women's helpline operated by the police, and 181, the women's helpline run through the Ministry of Women and Child Development. For free legal aid, the National Legal Services Authority helpline is 15100, and the Delhi State Legal Services Authority has offices in every district court complex. These are free and they exist for exactly this.

If one of you is being confined by family - not allowed to leave the house, phone taken away - that is wrongful confinement, and the remedy is a habeas corpus petition, which can be moved urgently and by a friend or a lawyer on the confined person's behalf. Do not wait for the person to somehow get out on their own. Courts treat these as urgent.

Practical things that help more than people expect: keep your phone charged and location shared with one trusted person; save screenshots of every threatening message and log every threatening call with date and time; do not go alone to meet family who have threatened you, however reasonable the invitation sounds; and if you have moved, do not tell anyone your address who might be persuaded to pass it on.

Everything below is about the legal routes. None of it replaces calling 112 when something is happening now.

What the law actually says

This is not a grey area, and it helps to know how firmly settled it is - both for your own confidence and because a police officer who is reluctant to act sometimes becomes considerably less reluctant when a written complaint cites the right judgments.

In Lata Singh v. State of U.P. (2006), the Supreme Court held that a major is free to marry whomever she wishes, and that if parents disapprove the most they can do is cut social relations. The Court directed the administration and police throughout the country to ensure that anyone who marries outside their caste or religion is not harassed or subjected to violence, and that those who threaten or commit violence against such couples be prosecuted.

In Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, (2018) 7 SCC 192, decided on 27 March 2018, the Supreme Court dealt directly with honour crimes and khap panchayats. It held that when two adults consensually choose each other as life partners, that is a manifestation of their choice recognised under Articles 19 and 21, and that any assembly or collective which seeks to interfere is acting illegally. The Court issued preventive, remedial and punitive directions to the States, which we come to below because they give you concrete entitlements.

In Shafin Jahan v. Asokan K.M. (2018), the Hadiya case, the Court set aside a High Court order that had annulled a marriage at a father's instance, holding that the choice of a partner lies within the exclusive domain of each individual, and that neither the state nor the law can dictate it. Justice Chandrachud added that the intimacies of marriage lie outside the control of the state.

And in Delhi specifically, in Uma Bharti & Anr. v. Government of NCT of Delhi, 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 761, decided on 19 August 2026, Justice Saurabh Banerjee held that consenting adults in a live-in relationship are entitled to police protection - the relationship being, in the Court's words, "akin to marriage, though not legally" - and that nobody, including parents, relatives or friends, had the authority to interfere with their choice, much less threaten their life or liberty. That judgment matters for couples who are not yet married.

The Shakti Vahini entitlements nobody tells you about

The remedial part of Shakti Vahini is the most practically useful thing in this entire area, and it is almost never mentioned on commercial pages. The Supreme Court did not merely disapprove of honour crimes - it directed States to build machinery, and that machinery is something you can ask for by name.

The Court directed that Special Cells be constituted in every district, comprising the Superintendent of Police, the District Social Welfare Officer and the District Adi-Dravidar Welfare Officer, and that a 24-hour helpline be established to receive and register complaints from couples who apprehend a threat, and to provide them assistance and protection.

It directed that safe houses be set up - the Court's phrase - so that a couple apprehending danger can be lodged there, at least for an initial period, on their request, and that the safe house be run under the supervision of a designated officer.

It also directed preventive steps: State Governments to identify districts and areas where honour killings or khap panchayat assemblies have been reported, and the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police to be held responsible for prevention in their jurisdiction, including issuing prohibitory orders where a khap assembly is likely to take place.

What this means for you in practice: when you write to the SHO or the DCP, you are not asking for a favour. You are asking a public authority to do something the Supreme Court has directed it to do, and you can say so, by name, in the complaint. That single difference in framing changes how a complaint is received more often than it should have to.

The three routes, and which one you actually need

People arrive asking for a "protection petition" when what their situation calls for is something smaller and faster, or occasionally something larger. Here is the ladder.

The first rung is a written complaint to the SHO of the police station having jurisdiction - usually where you live, and where the threat is coming from if that is different. It sets out who you are, that you are both adults, that you are married or intend to marry, who is threatening you and how, and what you are asking for. Get it acknowledged with a diary number or a stamped receipt. Keep a copy. This is the step that gets skipped, and it matters, because every later step is stronger when there is a written complaint on record that was not acted upon.

The second rung is a representation to the DCP of the district, and where relevant to the Commissioner of Police, referring to the earlier complaint and the lack of action. Again in writing, again acknowledged.

The third rung is a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution to the Delhi High Court, seeking a direction to the police to provide protection. This is what people mean by a protection petition. It is filed through an advocate, it names the State and the police officers concerned and usually the private respondents who are threatening you, and it asks the Court to direct that your life and liberty be protected.

There is also a distinct fourth thing, which is not protection at all: a habeas corpus petition, where one of you is being confined by family. That is a different remedy with a different urgency, and it can be moved by someone else on the confined person's behalf.

Which rung you start at depends on the seriousness and the immediacy. A vague family disapproval is not a High Court matter. A specific threat, people arriving at your workplace, a relative who has said something concrete, or police who have already refused to act - those are.

You can do this before the marriage

This is the single most useful piece of timing advice on the page, and it is the one couples most often learn too late.

Protection is not something you become entitled to on your wedding day. Courts routinely protect adults who have decided to marry and are facing threats because of that decision, and Uma Bharti (Delhi High Court, August 2026) confirms that even a live-in relationship between consenting adults attracts protection.

This matters enormously for anyone using the Special Marriage Act. Section 5 requires a notice of intended marriage, Section 6 requires it to be published, and Section 7 allows any person to object during the 30 days that follow. That notice is displayed publicly at the Marriage Officer's office. In practice, that 30-day window is exactly when families find out - and it is a window in which you are not yet married and may feel you have no standing to ask for anything.

You do have standing. If the notice has been filed and threats begin, that is the moment to put a written complaint on record with the SHO, not to wait and hope the 30 days pass quietly. Our Special Marriage Act page explains the notice mechanics and our court marriage page the wider process.

There is also a route-choice point buried in this. A Hindu Marriage Act marriage, where both of you are eligible, has no notice period at all - so a couple worried about exposure during those 30 days should at least know that the Special Marriage Act is not their only option. Whether it is the right one depends on your facts, and it is worth ten minutes of conversation before you file a notice rather than after.

What a protection petition actually gets you

It is worth being honest about the outcome, because expectations here are often either too high or too low.

What a favourable order typically directs is that the police concerned provide protection to the petitioners, look into their grievance, and take action in accordance with law if any threat materialises. In many orders the Court also directs the couple to keep the police station informed of their address - in Uma Bharti, within three days of any change - so that protection can actually be provided.

What it is not is a permanent security detail. Nobody is posted outside your door indefinitely. What the order gives you is official recognition that you have a credible apprehension of threat, a police station that is now on notice and accountable, and a document you can produce immediately if anything happens. In our experience the deterrent effect on the family is often the larger part of the benefit - a court order changes the calculation for relatives who assumed the police would take their side.

The order is also useful in a way people do not anticipate. If a false complaint is later made against you, the existence of a protection order recording your version, filed first, is materially helpful. Timing matters in these disputes, and being the party who went to court first, before anything happened, is a much better position than reacting afterwards.

What it will not do is resolve the family situation, and it is worth saying that plainly. Many of these matters end in reconciliation months or years later, and many do not. The order buys safety and time, not peace.

If a false FIR has already been filed

This is common enough that it should be treated as a normal scenario rather than a disaster, and it is entirely absent from every competing page we looked at.

The pattern is familiar. The woman leaves home to marry. Her family files a complaint alleging kidnapping or wrongful confinement, often naming the man and sometimes his family and friends as well. Where her age can be disputed, allegations under the POCSO Act are added. Sometimes an allegation of rape on a false promise or by deception is included.

Two things are true simultaneously and both matter. First, this is serious - these are cognizable offences and arrests happen. Second, the law is not on the family's side once the woman is an adult and states her own position. Courts across India, including in Salamat Ansari v. State of U.P. (2020) where the Allahabad High Court quashed exactly such an FIR, have held that the right to live with a person of one's choice irrespective of religion is intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty.

What changes the outcome fastest is the woman's own statement. A statement recorded before a Magistrate under Section 164 of the Code, in which she says she is an adult, left of her own free will, and is not confined by anybody, cuts the ground from under a kidnapping allegation. Getting that statement recorded promptly is usually the single most important step.

The other decisive factor is age proof. Where the woman's age is disputed and POCSO has been invoked, the matriculation certificate or birth certificate is the document the whole matter turns on. Have it, and have a clear copy of it, before anything else.

This is advocate's work rather than documentation work, and quashing petitions, anticipatory bail and Section 164 statements are handled by advocates enrolled with the Bar Council, with whom we coordinate. What we can do quickly is make sure the marriage documentation - the certificate, the age proof, the ceremony evidence - is in order, because in these matters that file is what everything else is argued from.

Will our address be disclosed?

This is the question couples in hiding ask first, and it deserves a careful answer rather than a reassuring one.

A petition filed in court is, as a general matter, a document on a record. Practices exist for keeping certain particulars confidential, and courts are alive to the risk in exactly these cases, but you should not proceed on an assumption that your current address will remain unknown to the other side simply because you would prefer it to. Raise it with your advocate at the drafting stage, before the petition is filed, not after.

There is also a practical tension worth understanding. Protection orders frequently direct the couple to keep the police station informed of their address - as in Uma Bharti, within three days of a change. That is not the court being careless; it is the mechanism by which protection can actually be delivered. The police cannot protect an address they do not have.

What most couples end up doing is separating the two questions: the police station knowing where you are, which is necessary, and your family knowing, which is not. How that is handled in the drafting is a matter to discuss with the advocate handling your petition, and it is a legitimate thing to ask about at the first meeting rather than a difficult one.

One more practical note. The most common way a hidden address gets out is not through court papers. It is through a sympathetic relative, a shared location, a delivery address, or a social media post. Be careful about the ordinary things.

Which court, when the family is in another state

A very common Delhi NCR situation: you are living in Delhi, the family is in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar or Rajasthan, and the threats are coming from there.

Broadly, a High Court exercises jurisdiction in relation to matters arising within its territory. Where you reside in Delhi and are seeking directions to the Delhi Police to protect you here, the Delhi High Court is the natural forum. Where the threat and the parties are wholly located in another state, that state's High Court may be the appropriate one, and there are situations where a petition may be maintainable in more than one place.

This is genuinely a question for the advocate drafting your petition rather than something to settle from a web page, because it turns on where you live, where the threatening parties are, which police you are seeking directions against, and where any FIR has been registered.

Two practical points that are not jurisdictional but matter more day to day. First, a written complaint can and should go to the police station where you actually live, whatever is happening elsewhere - your local SHO is who will respond if something happens at your door. Second, if an FIR has been registered against you in another state, that is a separate problem running on its own track, and it needs addressing there rather than being folded into a protection petition here.

For couples who have moved from Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon or Faridabad, our NCR pages cover the marriage and registration side; the protection question follows where you now live.

What it costs, and the free option

Nobody publishes figures for this, and we are not going to publish a fixed one either, for an honest reason: what a protection matter costs depends on whether it stops at a written complaint, goes to a representation, becomes a writ petition, or runs alongside a criminal matter. Those are very different amounts of work.

What we will commit to is the structure. A written complaint to an SHO is drafting work and costs accordingly - it is the cheapest step and often the only one needed. A writ petition is advocate's work, involves court fees and appearances, and is quoted by the advocate before filing. Nobody should be taking money from you without telling you which of these you are buying.

And there is a free route that deserves more prominence than it gets. Legal aid is available through the Delhi State Legal Services Authority, which has offices in every district court complex, and through the National Legal Services Authority helpline on 15100. Legal aid is not a lesser service - it is a constitutional entitlement, panel advocates handle these matters regularly, and for a couple with no money and a real threat it is the right first call rather than the last resort. We will tell you when that is the sensible route for you.

Be wary of anyone quoting a large single figure for "protection" without telling you what is being filed and where. Be equally wary of anyone promising an outcome. No advocate can guarantee what a court will order.

Getting the marriage documentation right first

This is where our work actually sits, and it is more relevant to protection than it first appears.

In almost every protection matter, the first thing anyone looks at - the police, the court, the other side - is the marriage documentation. Are they actually married? Under which law? Is it registered? Are both of them adults, and what proves it? A couple with a registered marriage certificate, clean age proof and proper evidence of the ceremony is in a fundamentally stronger position than a couple with a temple photograph and an assurance.

That is also why the age proof matters so much in these cases. Where a family alleges the woman is a minor, the matriculation certificate or birth certificate is the document the entire matter turns on. Where a marriage is disputed, the registration certificate is what settles it - and after the Supreme Court's decision in Dolly Rani v. Manish Kumar Chanchal (2024), evidence that a ceremony was actually performed matters more than it used to.

So the practical sequence for a couple in this position is often: get the documentation right and the marriage registered, quickly and properly, and put the protection complaint on record in parallel. Those two things reinforce each other. A protection petition backed by a registered marriage is a different document from one that is not.

We do the documentation side - the route advice, the document pre-check, affidavits, ceremony evidence, filing at the correct SDM, and the registration follow-through, including tatkal where a deadline is real. Where the matter needs a protection petition, a quashing petition, anticipatory bail or a habeas corpus, we coordinate with advocates enrolled with the Bar Council. We will tell you plainly which parts we are doing and which parts we are not.

Practical steps, in order

If you are reading this because something has started, this is a workable sequence. Not everything applies to everyone, and if the danger is immediate, skip to the phone.

• If anything is happening now, call 112
• Get both age proofs together and photograph them - matriculation certificate, birth certificate or passport. In a disputed-age case this is the most important document you own
• Save every threatening message, log every call with date and time, and keep it somewhere that is not only on the phone you carry
• Write a complaint to the SHO of the police station where you live, setting out that you are both adults, your marital position, who is threatening you and how, and what you are asking for. Get it acknowledged and keep a copy
• If there is no response, send a representation to the DCP referring to the complaint and the inaction, again in writing and acknowledged
• Ask about the district Special Cell and safe house provision directed by Shakti Vahini - these exist and you are entitled to approach them
• Get the marriage registered if it is not, and get the certificate. This changes your position in every forum
• Where the threat is specific or the police have not acted, instruct an advocate for a writ petition under Article 226 - or approach the Delhi State Legal Services Authority if cost is a barrier
• If one of you is being confined, move a habeas corpus petition urgently; it can be filed by someone else on their behalf
• If an FIR has been filed against you, get the Section 164 statement recorded promptly and take advocate's advice on quashing and anticipatory bail
• Once an order is obtained, keep the police station informed of your address as directed, and keep a copy of the order on your phone

A note on how to read this page

This is general legal information about protection for couples in Delhi as at 2026. It is not advice on your case, and no page can be, because these matters turn almost entirely on specific facts - who has said what to whom, what has been filed where, what your ages are and what proves them.

We are a marriage documentation service. We prepare and file marriage registrations and the documents around them, and where a matter needs court work we coordinate with advocates enrolled with the Bar Council. We will always tell you which of those two things you are getting, and we will tell you when free legal aid through the Delhi State Legal Services Authority is the sensible route rather than paying anybody.

If you take one thing from this page, take this: the law is clearly on the side of two adults who have chosen each other, and it has been for twenty years. What decides outcomes is not whether you are in the right - you are - but whether the documentation is in order and whether things were put on record early. Both of those are fixable today.

Our consultation is free and confidential. Call or send a message on WhatsApp, and if the answer is that you should be calling 112 or the Legal Services Authority instead of us, we will say so.