Report No. 22
22. Clause 9(1)-Marriage Registrars in India.-
Under clause 9(1), the State Government may, by notification appoint any person to be a Marriage Registrar for any district. It has been suggested by a number of persons that the Registrar should be a Christian. Section 7 of the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, does provide that all Marriage Registrars shall be Christians. We made a departure from this provision, because we wanted to provide for a contingency when no Christian may be available in an area for being appointed as a Marriage Registrar. And as there is no question of the marriage being sacramental when it is performed before the Registrar, we considered that it would be convenient if no condition were imposed as to who should be the Marriage Registrar.
Our intention was, that the Registrar should ordinarily be a Christian, but in case where one was not available, it should be open to the Government to appoint a non-Christian as Registrar. We have once again considered the matter, and we think that there is no need to make any change in the provision, because we have no doubt that the Government will appoint Christians as Marriage Registrars wherever practicable.