GIBY GEORGE Vs. MARRIAGE OFFICER PRINCIPAL DISTRICT REGISTRAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners married on 1-3-2007. The second petitioner is abroad. Her employer has offered to provide employment to the first petitioner, who is now unemployed. For such purpose, the petitioners need appropriate certificate of marriage for transit. Under the aforesaid peculiar facts and circumstances, following the decision of the Division of this Court in John Lukose v. District Registrar, 2007 1 KerLT 247 , I am inclined to direct the registration of the marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, hereinafter referred to as the 'Act', for short, without insisting on the statutory notice period of thirty days.

(2.) However, the learned Government Pleader urges that the marriage itself was on 1-3-2007 and the application for registration of the marriage under the Act ought to be after a cohabitation of a minimum period of thirty days after the marriage. He makes this argument on the basis of Clause (f) of Section 52.

(3.) For the purpose of considering this contention, Section 15 of the Act has to be adverted to. It provides that any marriage celebrated before or after the commencement of the Act other than one solemnized ceremoniously under the Special Marriage Act, 1872 or under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 may be registered under Chapter III by a marriage officer in the territories to which the Act extends, if conditions (a) to (f) under Section 15 are satisfied. Clause (a) provides that a ceremony of marriage should have been performed between the parties and they have been living together as husband and wife ever since. Clause (b) provides that neither party should have more than one spouse living at the time of registration. Clause (c) provides that neither party should be an idiot or a lunatic at the time of registration. Clause (d) provides that the parties should have completed the age of twenty-one years at the time of registration. Clause (e) provides that the parties should not be within the degrees of prohibited relationship. The controversy on the basis of the argument is on Clause (f) which reads as follows: