Law panel wants marriage registration to be compulsory to prevent fraud

NEW DELHI: In a signification recommendation, the Law Commission has recommended compulsory registration of marriages in all states. For this purpose, the Law Commission has underlined the need for a uniform law.

The Commission, headed by Justice (retd) B S Chuahan, has said defaulters shall be punished with a fine on per day basis for delay without reasonable cause. Further, suggesting a provision for online registration of marriages, the Commission has opined that it would be “desirable” to have a centralised national portal for maintenance of records” of such registration. To facilitate the process, it has been recommended that availability of forms and documents in vernacular languages must be ensured to make the portal easily accessible to all citizens.

Also, the report of Law Commission reads, “If registration of marriage is linked to the unique identification number (UID), it would be possible to achieve universal tracing of records”. The report was submitted by the Law Commission to the Law Ministry on Tuesday.

The ministry had in February forwarded a request to the Commission, asking it to submit a report with regard to issues relating to compulsory registration of marriages. The issue has been dealt with previously in other reports of the Law Commission, the report reads.