Somnath Mallick 23 December 2021

Religion on marriage certificate.

Hello Everyone,

I have a question about religion and marriage certificates. Not sure if this falls under Civil Law or some other section, I am not a legal expert. So please move the post if need be.

So let me explain what happened, I went to register my marriage today at the marriage registrar office. So while filling up the form for the application, everything was going all right, but when it came to the religion section, I filled mine as "Atheist", but the Registration officer (not sure what his exact designation is!), started throwing hissy-fits and said I cant do that, it has to be filled as "Hindu". He also said, if I want to fill up the form as Atheist, I need to get a affidavit or certificate or something on those lines, done from the court. So I said fine, I will get the papers. But since I was short on time, I filled it up as Hindu and moved on.

So here's my doubt:

1. Is it true that I cant fill up any other thing other than Hindu in the marriage form.

2. If what he said was right, how do I get that affidavit done from the court? What is it called? What kind of a lawyer do I need? And finally how long would it take?

The only reason I ask about the timeline is that, I will get the marriage certificate done in a month, if the process of getting the affidavit is quick, I will ask him to put the processing on hold for a while. But I guess, if #1 is false, then #2 is irrelevant. Its really bugging me! Please advice. I don't want any form to reflect something that I am not.

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2 Replies

kavksatyanarayana (subregistrar/supdt.(retired)) 23 December 2021

You have to decide whether the marriage be registered under Hindu Marriage Act or Special Marriage Act. I think the Sub Registrar or Registrar of Marriages might have been thought that you are going to register it under Hindu Marriage Act. There is a difference between the Hindu Marriage Act and Spl. Marriage Act. Under the Special Marriage Act, you have to give marriage intended notice before solemnizing the marriage and whereas under Hindu Marriage Act the marriage will be registered when you go for it.

Megha 19 January 2022

Hi,

Normally, forms with religion as one of the questions donot have "atheist" as an option. Apart from Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, etc the last option usually is others; again a indication towards religion other than the aforementioned. Howevr, these days since alot of people don not wish to identify with any religion are petitioning the governent to include the of no caste, no religion. While there's no formal word on the same, one can appoach a court to get an affidavit with regards to the same.

In 2019, Sneha Parthibajara become the first Indian to get a no caste, no religion certificate after a long drawn battle which went on for nearly 9 years.

From the above, it can be inferred that to opt for the atheist tag, you need to file anapplication to the court and this may take a considerable amount of time.

Best regards,
Megha