Notice Of Peril: Why Special Marriage Act's 30-Day Notice Must Fall

Put yourself in a hypothetical situation where you have decided to marry someone whom you love but who is from a different religion than you are. In order to legalize your marriage, you approach the marriage officer's office, complete all the paperwork, and then wait. Meanwhile, your name, address, and intention to marry your love are posted on a public noticeboard, available for the general public to see, object to, or act upon the same. The people in your community who are against this marriage because of marrying outside your faith may wish you harm, but all have access to this very information about your marriage. This is the reality created by the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (hereinafter, SMA).¹

Under this Act, throughout Sections 5 to 10,² it makes it mandatory for couples to release this public notice of their marriage, required for the interfaith and secular nature of marriages. No such burden of process exists under other personal laws like the Hindu Marriage Act,³ the Muslim Personal Law or any other personal law framework in India. The asymmetry among different personal laws is not just a coincidence. It is a constitutional problem which violates the right to privacy, personal liberty, and one's choice of marrying a person, which is recognized as a fundamental right closely linked to the freedom of expression.

“The notice requirement does not prevent fraud. It prevents marriage, and it does so selectively, targeting only those who choose to marry outside their community.”⁴

An Unequal Architecture of Marriage

Equality before the law has been guaranteed under the Indian Constitution under Article 14. The Apex Court of India, through its various judgments, has consistently held that classification under Article 14 should be based on intelligible differentia and must bear a rational nexus with respect to the object sought to be achieved. The SMA provision with respect to notice fails both these tests.

According to the government, it justifies the notice period as a means of preventing fraud and bigamy. Yet no such provisions exist in the Hindu Marriage Act, which governs the majority of marriages of the Indian population. Couples marrying under the Hindu personal laws face no such burden of a 30-day notice period of waiting, no public declaration, and no veto power to the community. If the objective of the provision was to prevent fraud under marriages, its absence from other personal laws provisions exposes the SMA's notice regime not as a safeguard to the interfaith couples but as a stigma, believed in by the community and statutory provisions.

The Supriyo Precedent and Its Unfinished Work

In the landmark judgment of Supriyo v. Union of India(2023), the Apex Court rejected the idea of recognising same-sex marriage legally and made a series of observations that are directly instructive. The majority decision acknowledged that the SMA's notice regime to the marriage officer creates a “chilling effect” on the interfaith couple's right to marry by exposing these individuals to social and familial stigmas. Other concurring opinions further noted that the notice regime does not align with the constitutional right to privacy affirmed in K.S. Puttuswamy v. Union of India (2017).

“The very object of the Special Marriage Act is to protect couples. But these provisions lay them open to invasion by the society, by District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police”, D Y Chandrachud observed orally.⁵

The Puttuswamy judgment emphasised elevating informational privacy, which gives the right to individuals to control the disclosure of their personal information to a third party. And hence, informational privacy was elevated to a fundamental right under Article 21. A statutory compliance that compels the interfaith couples to publicise their most intimate decision and to submit that decision for the community review that attacks the very core of this right. This regime subjects them to community stigmatisation. Compelled public disclosure of an intimate decision is not regulation of marriage-it is regulation of the person, by the community, in defiance of constitutional privacy.

Vigilantism

The catastrophic effects of this notice regime cannot only be seen in theories but can also be observed around us. From the documented cases across Indian states, it can be concluded that these records are used by the couples' families to intercept and prevent interfaith marriages, which frequently escalates to violence as the end result. This fails to fight the Honour Killings, illegal confinement, and resulting forced separations.⁶ The most vulnerable are the runaway couples, leaving them with no support from their families, whereby the notice regime is a betrayal of their location and identity. The State, in effect, becomes an instrument of harassing the very citizens that it should have protected.

In my opinion, the path forward can be by repealing Sections 5 to 10 in their entirety. In place of these provisions, a new system of silent or confidential registration should be adopted. The procedure of public notice should be struck down or the objection window. This new system will reflect the democratic jurisdictions' handling of civil marriages. In order to prevent fraud under marriages, as a justification given by the government, can be adequately addressed through cross verification of documents provided by the interfaith couples at the time of registration. This leaves broadcasting of their personal details redundant. The Marriage Officer already has the statutory authority and administrative power to conduct such verification.

This notice regime fails on every aspect of personal liberty and freedom of choice given to every individual in a democratic nation. Even after completing 78 years of independence and 34 years of economic liberalization, Indian personal laws still contain provisions that reflect colonial legacy and systematic patriarchy in India. This is based on patriarchy. These laws were made when women did not have agency.⁷ This regime must fall not just for the convenience of the individual's privacy but because constitutional equality and dignity demand it.

1. The Special Marriage Act 1954

2. The Special Marriage Act 1954, ss 5-10

3. The Hindu Marriage Act 1955

4. Alok Singh, 'Special Marriage Act's Notice Regime and Judicial Denial of Protection' (Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, 30 Jan 2026)

5. Livelaw Report, 'Based on Patriarchy, Exposes Couples To Invasion: Supreme Court Questions Special Marriage Act Provision on Notice Inviting Objections' LiveLaw (India, 20 April 2023)

6. Namita Bhandare & Surbhi Karwa, 'How the Special Marriage Act is Killing Love' (Article 14, 19 October 2020)

7. Sahodar equality for men, 'Supreme Court criticizes Notice for Objections under Special Marriage Act for being patriarchal and invasive of privacy' (Sahodar equality for men, 21 April 2023)

Views are personal.