Deeply con­cerned about the chal­lenges faced by newly-mar­ried Sikh cou­ples in reg­is­ter­ing their mar­riages un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, 1909, a high-level del­e­ga­tion com­pris­ing Man­mo­han Singh Ratti, Pres­i­dent, Kul­want Singh, Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent, Bal­bir Singh, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, Tejin­der Singh Vashi, Navi Mum­bai and Mo­han Singh Saini, of the au­gust body of the Sikhs in Mum­bai-Sri Guru Singh Sabha Mum­bai, sub­mit­ted a mem­o­ran­dum to the Mum­bai Mu­nic­i­pal Com­mis­sioner Shri Bhushan Gagrani to ad­dress the pro­longed de­lay in im­ple­ment­ing pro­ce­dures for reg­is­ter­ing Sikh mar­riages un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, 1909, in Mum­bai and the of­fi­cial as­sured the Sikh lead­er­ship of pos­i­tive steps in the di­rec­tion.

The Anand Mar­riage Act en­acted in 1909, and amended in 2012, pro­vided statu­tory recog­ni­tion to Sikh mar­riage cer­e­monies, known as Anand Karaj, mak­ing state gov­ern­ments re­spon­si­ble for the reg­is­tra­tion process and build­ing on­line and in-per­son pro­ce­dures. With the task of reg. So far, 17 Out of 28 states and 8 Union Ter­ri­to­ries, so far only 17 have for­mu­lated the rules.

In the state of Ma­ha­rash­tra, the rules were framed in 2020 but prac­ti­cally there was no process in place. Re­cently, the is­sue gained trac­tion af­ter a so­cial me­dia post by the Navi Mum­bai Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion reignited hope among the lo­cal Sikh com­mu­nity.

Singh Sabha Mum­bai’s lat­est ap­peal un­der­scores the ur­gency of the mat­ter and re­flects the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s com­mit­ment to safe­guard­ing its cul­tural and re­li­gious prac­tices in Ma­ha­rash­tra. It is also a demon­stra­tion of the com­mit­ment of the 100-plus year old rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of the Sikhs in Mum­bai.

Speak­ing to World Sikh News, the Sabha Pres­i­dent Man­mo­han Singh said, “We have been as­sured by the Com­mis­sioner of early com­pli­ance and we hope that will stream­line the work for young Sikh cou­ples seek­ing reg­is­tra­tion un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act.

“We will con­tinue to pur­sue till the pro­ce­dure be­comes a rou­tine as in all other  mar­riage reg­is­tra­tions,” he added.

While Sikhs across the coun­try wait for rules to be en­acted and pro­ce­dures to be put in place, pre­var­i­ca­tion by Ma­ha­rash­tra who passed rules in 2020 is in­ex­plic­a­ble. Singh Sabha also ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over the lack of fol­low-through even af­ter the fram­ing the Ma­ha­rash­tra Anand Mar­riages Reg­is­tra­tion Rules, 2020.

High­light­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of mar­riage reg­is­tra­tion, the Sab­ha’s Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent Kul­want Singh said, “For Sikhs, mar­riage is not just a le­gal con­tract but a sa­cred bond rooted in our re­li­gious teach­ings and prac­tices as out­lined in the Sikh Code of Con­duct -the Sikh Re­hat­nama. The lack of pro­ce­dures to reg­is­ter these sa­cred unions un­der a law that specif­i­cally ac­knowl­edges our tra­di­tions un­der­mines our rights and iden­tity.”

Singh Sab­ha’s mem­o­ran­dum drew at­ten­tion to a court case in which the Au­rangabad bench of the Bom­bay High Court in­ter­vened on be­half of a Sikh lawyer cou­ple -Am­rit­pal Singh and Satwinder Kaur, who faced years of bu­reau­cratic hur­dles to reg­is­ter their mar­riage.

“We had to fight for 3 long years to get our Anand Mar­riage cer­tifi­cate. It is un­for­tu­nate that for such a ba­sic doc­u­ment, we had to knock the doors of the ju­di­ciary,” said Ad­vo­cate Satwinder Kaur while speak­ing to WSN.

 

Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh was un­equiv­o­cal in say­ing, “It is im­per­a­tive that Mum­bai takes the log­i­cal steps, or else, they can be hauled up for con­tempt of the or­ders of the Bom­bay High Court in the mat­ter.”

“Singh Sabha Mum­bai has taken a praise­wor­thy ini­tia­tive but it is now the duty of every new Sikh cou­ple to push for the Anand Mar­riage Cer­tifi­cate. We should not lose our right by our own de­fault” he added.

“While the state is­sued a cir­cu­lar as­sign­ing mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties to over­see reg­is­tra­tion, there has been no prac­ti­cal im­ple­men­ta­tion, some­times forc­ing cou­ples to reg­is­ter un­der other leg­is­la­tions. I am glad the process is un­der­way,” said Tejin­der Singh, a Sikh ac­tivist from Vashi.

“This is not just about the law—it’s about en­sur­ing that the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s dis­tinct iden­tity is re­spected and up­held,” con­cluded Singh Sabha Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Bal­bir Singh.

Ad­vo­cate Aman­jot Singh Chadha filed a pe­ti­tion in the Ut­tarak­hand High Court re­sult­ing in the state fram­ing the rules in 2023. Ad­vo­cate Aman­jot Singh Chadha has filed a pe­ti­tion in 2022 in the Supreme Court of In­dia seek­ing fram­ing of rules by all states and Union Ter­ri­to­ries and it is still un­der con­sid­er­a­tion with the next date of hear­ing sched­uled for 26 March 2025.

The pe­ti­tion reads that, “tak­ing into ac­count the dif­fi­cul­ties aris­ing due to the in­ac­tion of the State Gov­ern­ments in for­mu­lat­ing the rules for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the said Act, a large sec­tion of the so­ci­ety is be­ing dis­en­fran­chised from avail­ing of the fruits of a Cen­tral Act.”

The op­por­tu­nity is there. The right is there. The sys­tem is get­ting in place. It is for the Sikhs now to as­sert their iden­tity through ob­tain­ing Anand Mar­riage Cer­tifi­cates. Oth­er­wise, “you get what you de­serve.”