Report No. 211

B. Laws of Other States

The Bombay Registration of Marriages Act 1954, now applicable in Maharashtra and Gujarat, has been adopted mutatis mutandis by local legislation in some other States including Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

Nowhere failure to register a marriage, which is otherwise compulsory, affects the validity of marriage in any way. It also does not adversely affect the conjugal or post-divorce rights of either party to marriage or the availability of matrimonial remedies under the law applicable. In the former Mysore State a Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages Act was passed in 1956.

The Rajasthan legislature passed a Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages Act in 1958. This Act provides that the State Government may in its discretion establish a general registry office separately for keeping certified copies of registers of marriages and appoint to the charge of such separate office an officer to be called the Registrar-General of Marriages for the State [Section 4(b)]. It makes the central Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1886 inapplicable in the merged territories where it was earlier in force [Section 25 (i)]. It also repeals the local Acts on this subject earlier enforced in some such territories [Section 25 (ii) - (vi)].