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John (Engineer)     07 November 2012

Christian marriage not registered

Dear Lawyers,

I got married in a CSI church(Vijayawada) and during the wedding ceremony, I signed three copies of Marriage Certificate , out of which , one of them is given to me , one is held in the church register book and one has to be be sent to the Registrar of Marriage and Death Office . The certificate states "Under Section 62 of Act XV of Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872" . When enquired with the Church Authorities they couldn't confirm in which office they have registered my marriage and are also refusing to hand over the copy to me as well. Now I'm stuck in the process of getting a registered Marriage Certificate.Please advice me on how I can proceed further. 



Learning

 6 Replies

Tajobsindia (Senior Partner )     07 November 2012

1. From your brief the procedure followed by the Church is valid legal procedure and the issued Marriage Certificate has legal validity and recognition of being Certificate of Registration of Christian Marriage in India. They will not give you copies as you are asking other than Marriage certificate that they gave to you. Rest two copies are duly procedure followed by the concerned Church so it is useless to ask such copies.

2. To me it looks like you are worried of future usage of Marriage Certificate say as illustration for the purpose of traveling visa or immigration for any foreign country, then the Marriage Certificate would be required to be Apostillised first, so carry out the process of Apostillisation of this Marriage Certificate first then use it for any such visa or immigration purposes.

3. In Apostillisation all documents should be first authenticated by the designated agencies in the State from where the document has been issued. Like in case of personal documents like birth, death, affidavits, power of attorneys, marriage etc, Home Department/General Administration Department are the designated authorities. You can log on to State’s official website and there they normally give all such information.

4. Further, in case of educational documents like degree, diplomas, matriculation and secondary level certificates, State Governments have now opened Regional Authentication Centers (called as RAC’s) at various States from where the document should first be attested.

5. Documents attested by these authorities then need to be presented to MEA for issue of Apostil’s at Ministry of External Affairs at
CPV Division, Patiala House New Delhi. Once the Apostils stickers of Rs 70/- (check latest Fees structure if has changed) is affixed each on all these documents you can use them for VISA / Immigration purposes if asked by concerned Embassy.

Hence, do not worry the Marriage Certificate is a valid one for all legal purposes.

stanley (Freedom)     08 November 2012

Agree with Tajobs since i have used the church Marriage certificate which was duly attested to apply for a Visa and the same is valid . 

John (Engineer)     08 November 2012

Hi TajobsIndia and Stanley .. thanks for your reply .All I wanted to is to change my status to married in my Passport and get a new passport for my baby . As per your reply I believe the certificate which I hold right now would suffice and require no attestation for passport application in India .

stanley (Freedom)     08 November 2012

Better to get it attested and than apply it would be benefical at a later stage too when ever you want to apply for visa's 

Jay (Manager)     08 September 2014

Hi,

Even I'm facing the similar problem. I'm processing for Canada Immigration and my consultant rejected my christian marriage certificate. My marriage certificate is in regional language and I'm thinking that is the main reason for rejection. 

When I approached the registrar office for certificate, they said that they will not register Christian marriages and they will register only Hindu and Muslim marriages. Not sure why this discrimination. 

So my only option left is to get a Christian marriage certificate in English. If I get it in English, will it be accepted for visa processing? getting it notary from a lawyer is not an issue. 

Please advise me on this. 

Thanks in advance!

Jay

 

 

Swarn123   08 November 2016

Hello Jay,

                   Can you please update what happened in your case. I also have chruch marriage certificate. And we want to apply for spouse visa for USA.

In U.P they are not registering christian marriages. They have not appointed any christian marriage registrar. This is really bad and discrimination for christians.

 


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