Gujarat wants parental consent to register marriages. Is this legal?

Gujarat’s proposed changes to marriage registration rules announced this month requiring applying couples to inform their parents raise questions about personal liberty, autonomy and the right of consenting adults to marry whomever they like.

The proposal has been presented as an administrative safeguard aimed at preventing fraud, coercion and forced marriages using the Hindutva conspiracy theory of love jihad as political justification.

“There is no objection to love,” said Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi on February 21 as he introduced the rules in the state assembly. “But if some Salim posing as Suresh traps a girl, we will not spare them.”

If passed, the rules would be issued under the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006. This act makes the registration of marriages with the state compulsory.

Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan, practising in the Supreme Court, said the rules were “totally unconstitutional” and “against the right to privacy”.

“It is in tune with the mentality of the sangh parivaar,” he said, referring to the group of Hindutva organisations that operate under the umbrella of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Demands for similar rules have surfaced in other states too.

Kirti Somaiya, a former MP from the Bharatiya Janata Party, earlier this month urged Maharashtra’s chief minister to introduce a comparable provision, arguing that in cases of so-called love jihad, it should be mandatory for parents to be informed when marriages are to be registered.

Love jihad is the conspiracy theory that Muslim men are entering relationships with Hindu women solely to convert them to Islam.

What the proposed rules change

The draft proposal tabled by Deputy Chief Minister Sanghavi in the state assembly shows that the changes would significantly alter how marriage registration works in Gujarat.

The existing rules, in place since 2006, were designed as a simple administrative system meant only for marriages to be recorded with the state government. Their purpose is limited to creating a legal record to prevent disputes over marital status and to help couples access rights such as inheritance, maintenance and welfare benefits.

Under these rules, the registrar’s role is procedural – verifying age, identity, address and proof that a marriage ceremony actually took place. Marriage between consenting adults is treated as a private decision, with no involvement of the families.

The proposed rules introduce a major shift by adding a layer of family oversight to the registration process. Couples would now have to submit detailed information about their parents, including Aadhaar details, addresses and contact information. The authorities would also be required to notify parents after an application is filed, effectively bringing families into an administrative exercise that previously was neutral.

The proposal also changes timelines. Earlier, registration could be completed once documents were verified. Now, a mandatory waiting period of 30 days is proposed, turning a straightforward procedure into a prolonged process.

The new rules also create uncertainty. They do not clarify what happens if parents object after being notified, whether such objections can affect registration or what safeguards exist for couples facing family pressure.

Are the new rules constitutional?

Registering a marriage is how the state officially acknowledges that a couple is legally married. Because of this, if any conditions are attached to registration, they could indirectly affect a person’s ability to freely choose their life partner. This would raise concerns about individual freedom and constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court of India has repeatedly affirmed that consenting adults have a right to marry a person of their choice, regardless of parental opposition.

In Lata Singh v State of Uttar Pradesh (2006), the Court held that an “adult woman is free to marry anyone of her choice, and that families cannot interfere with such decisions”. The judgment went further by directing the authorities to protect couples facing threats from relatives, recognising the real risk of social coercion.

This principle gained constitutional depth in 2017, when a nine-judge bench in the landmark KS Puttaswamy judgment recognised privacy as a fundamental right. The court clarified that autonomy in intimate personal matters, including marriage, is a fundamental right.

The position was reaffirmed in 2018 in the Shafin Jahan case involving a Malayali woman named Hadiya Jahan. The court declared that the “choice of a life partner is intrinsic to dignity and liberty, and lies beyond the control of both the state and the family”.

Subsequent High Court rulings across the country have repeatedly affirmed this principle while granting protection to interfaith and inter-caste couples facing family opposition. Most recently, the Delhi High Court reiterated that the right to marry a person of one’s choice is a core part of Article 21, the fundamental right that guarantees protection of life and personal liberty, and that neither parents nor state authorities can interfere with this freedom.

Collectively, these decisions establish a clear legal principle: the validity of a marriage between consenting adults does not depend on parental approval.

State acting like a nosy neighbour

Senior Advocate Indira Jaising said these rules make little sense for adult citizens.

“They already have an anti-conversion law” to complicate interfaith marriages, she said. “After becoming a major, why does anyone need consent from parents to get a marriage registered?”

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan described the Gujarat government’s move as “wholly patriarchal”.

“If the parental consent is for consenting adults, it is an invasion of their fundamental right of choice,” Dhawan added. “Such laws are oppressed and fundamentally tainted by unconstitutionality.”

Advocate Nipun Saxena, practicing in Delhi, contended that these new rules could be weaponised to block inter-caste and inter-faith marriages.

“A scenario could arise if, despite having given full particulars of the parents and having intimated the parents, the parties who are marrying did not have the consent of their parents to marry,” he added. “In such a case, the parents who disagree with such a marriage owing to inter-caste or inter-faith would, on receipt of such intimation, be free to initiate proceedings under criminal law for abduction, kidnapping, wrongful confinement, or in some cases, rape and sexual assault.”

Delhi-based Advocate-on-Record Anas Tanwir questioned the legal consequences of such a provision, noting that a marriage does not become void if the parents object to it. He asked what purpose would be served served if the requirement is merely to communicate the information to parents.

“There is a complete absence of what is the consequence of this,” he added. “This is all political for the political gain of the existing law.”

Love marriages have always been legally valid by operation of law and “do not require any new legislation” or executive action, Tanwir said. “The state is acting like the mohallah ki aunty” or nosy neighbour.”