There is a certain misunderstanding of the Supreme Court judgment pronounced recently in Dolly Rani v Manish Kumar Chanchal that if no saptapadi ceremony is performed, a Hindu marriage between two people cannot be considered valid. The Court did not state the law in as many words, but it did not outline in the judgment that there could be other ceremonies to validate the marriage. It also did not examine some customary practices where no elaborate ceremonies are performed beyond the exchange of garlands or the amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, in Tamil Nadu, which introduced the suya mariyadhai (self-respect) form of marriage through Section 7(a).
The case before the court
The judgment arose in a case involving a transfer petition filed by the petitioner-wife, seeking to transfer a divorce petition filed by the respondent-husband from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, to Ranchi, Jharkhand. During the pendency of this petition, both the parties had jointly applied under Section 142 of the Constitution for a declaration of invalidity of their marriage. In their plea, they had said that they were engaged to be married on March 7, 2021, and “due to certain exigencies and pressures, they were constrained to obtain a marriage certificate dated July 7, 2021, from Vadik Jankalyan Samiti (Regd).” On the basis of that certificate, they sought registration under the Uttar Pradesh Registration Rules, 2017, and were issued a ‘Certificate of Registration of Marriage’. The families of the parties fixed a date for performing the ceremony as per Hindu rites and customs. But even as the man and woman lived separately, differences began to crop up between them and the man filed for divorce.
