Uttar Pradesh restricts city-hopping for marriages

Uttar Pradesh mandates that marriage registrations require residency proof from either the bride, groom, or their parents, following a high court ruling.

Cities in Uttar Pradesh can no longer register a marriage unless either the bride or the groom or one of their parents is a resident of that city, according to directions issued on June 6 by the Uttar Pradesh government’s stamps and registration department, officials said on Saturday.

Uttar Pradesh restricts city-hopping for marriages

The directions were issued following an Allahabad high court on May 12 in a case involving couples who sought legal protection after eloping without the consent of their families. Many of these were couples who registered their marriage in Ghaziabad despite not being residents here, which resulted in jurisdictional issues when they sought protection.

“The high court’s directions are interim directions until the rules are amended — the court has also ordered the principal secretary of the department of women and child development to amend the Uttar Pradesh Marriage Registration Rules, 2017, in coordination with the inspector general of the stamps and registration department within six months. The state government has ordered us to follow the high court’s interim directions with immediate effect till the rules are amended. One of the main components of the directions states that a marriage will be registered in a particular city only if either the bride or the groom or their parents are generally the residents of the same city,” said Pushpendra Kumar, assistant inspector general (AIG, stamps).

The directions also state: an unregistered rent agreement will not be considered proof of residence, the purohit or person who solemnised the marriage must be physically present at the office of the marriage registrar at the time of registration, and an affidavit by the purohit or person who claims to have solemnised the marriage shall be made mandatory at the time of registration.

“The aforesaid interim directions shall specifically apply to the registration of marriages involving runaway couples — those who have entered into a matrimonial alliance without the consent of their family members. Provided that, if any of the family members of the parties to the marriage are present at the time of registration, the marriage officer may, at his discretion, waive the aforesaid conditions, either wholly or in part, after being satisfied as to the genuineness of the marriage,” the Allahabad high court had said in its order on May 12.

Till now, marriages could be registered wherever they were held. “Now, this condition has been done away with. Earlier, people from other states would come to Uttar Pradesh to get married and register their marriage. The interim directions were given in connection with a petition where a couple from other districts got married in Ghaziabad and registered their marriage here, and later approached the high court seeking protection from their families. This resulted in jurisdiction issues. There were many similar petitions that were filed in the high court, and all these were combined with the petition. So, the court issued interim directions and also directions to amend the rules,” Kumar added.

The Uttar Pradesh Marriage Registration Rules, 2017, state that registration is compulsory in cases of marriage/remarriage where one of the parties is a permanent resident of Uttar Pradesh or the marriage is performed inside Uttar Pradesh.

Officials said that Ghaziabad had emerged as a popular destination for marriages of runaway couples as people and firms here offered them packages to perform and register marriages. Officials in Ghaziabad conducted an inspection in March and April for the period October 10, 2024, to March 3, 2025, and found that one of the eight sub-registrar offices (SROs) in the district was getting an exceptionally high number of applications for marriage registrations.

In the inspection period, 12,699 registrations took place at eight SROs in Ghaziabad. Of these, 8,747 alone were registered at SRO-5. Officials said that this number was much higher than the combined number of marriages registered in the same period in Meerut (1,212), Bulandshahr (402), Gautam Budh Nagar (1,304), Baghpat (231) and Hapur (176).