Af­ter run­ning from pil­lar to post for more than two years af­ter their Anand Karaj mar­riage, Sikh lawyer cou­ple Am­rit­pal Singh and Satvin­der Kaur fi­nally man­aged to get an Or­der on 13 De­cem­ber from the Au­rangabad bench of the Bom­bay High Court di­rect­ing the mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties of Au­rangabad -now Chha­tra­p­ati Samb­haji Na­gar to is­sue them a Mar­riage Cer­tifi­cate un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, 1909. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh speaks to the cou­ple about the lack of knowl­edge of Sikh mar­riage cus­toms amongst the bu­reau­cracy, the or­deal they had to un­dergo, and the in­sin­cer­ity of the Ma­ha­rash­tra state gov­ern­ment in fram­ing rules and en­sur­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rules framed un­der the cen­tury-old Act.

Rep­ri­mand­ing the Mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties of Chha­tra­p­ati Samb­haji Na­gar and their Ward of­fice for ha­rass­ing the Sikh cou­ple Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh and his wife Ad­vo­cate Satvin­der Kaur who le­git­i­mately wanted a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, 1909, the Au­rangabad bench of the Bom­bay High Court, com­pris­ing Jus­tice Ravin­dra V. Ghuge and Jus­tice Y. G. Kho­bra­gade, di­rected the Au­rangabad Mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties to grant the mar­riage cer­tifi­cate to the cou­ple on 22 De­cem­ber 2023 with­out even a sin­gle day’s ex­ten­sion.

This did not come about eas­ily. Satvin­der Kaur, a res­i­dent of Au­rangabad had to fight in per­son for her­self and her hus­band and re­buff many a lame ar­gu­ment by the coun­sels of the Cor­po­ra­tion, in­clud­ing Mr. S. S. Tope, Ad­vo­cate for Re­spon­dent the Chha­tra­p­ati Samb­haji Na­gar Ma­hana­garpa­lika. Dur­ing the ar­gu­ments on 12 De­cem­ber, the ad­vo­cates for the re­spon­dents had stated to the ex­tent that, “Even though the pe­ti­tion­ers are Sikhs, they are gov­erned by Hindu law.”

Satvin­der Kaur had to nar­rate the de­tails of how the Anand Karaj -the Sikh mar­riage is sol­em­nized with four cir­cum­am­bu­la­tions around Guru Granth Sahib and not the seven rounds around the fire as is the Hindu cus­tom. On the le­gal side, she also men­tioned how these de­tails were men­tioned in the Anand Mar­riage Act and Sec­tion 6 of the Rules – Ma­ha­rash­tra Anand Mar­riages Reg­is­tra­tion Rules, 2020 framed by the Ma­ha­rash­tra gov­ern­ment.

Sub­se­quently, on the day of the fi­nal ar­gu­ments, the re­spon­dents ac­cepted that the Anand Mar­riage Act has been on the statute for more than 100 years, and as such they had no ob­jec­tion to grant­ing the cer­tifi­cate, upon which the judges gave a stern or­der.

While Sikhs at large are obliv­i­ous of their rights, it takes a lawyer cou­ple like Am­rit­pal Singh and Satvin­der Kaur to catch the bull by its horns. It is now the turn of Sikhs all across In­dia to seek reg­is­tra­tion un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, of 1909.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, even the judges, in a rather joc­u­lar man­ner ad­mit­ted that they too were not aware of the Anand Mar­riage Act, of 1909. Not sur­pris­ingly be­cause the Sikhs them­selves are obliv­i­ous of their rights and it takes a lawyer cou­ple like that of Am­rit­pal Singh and Satvin­der Kaur to catch the bull by its horns.

In a lighter vein, Jus­tice Ravin­dra Ghuge, be­fore an­nounc­ing the or­der told the Pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors -“Why are you not giv­ing Anand to this cou­ple?”

Satvin­der Kaur told WSN that, “We were mar­ried on 24 Oc­to­ber 2021. Though it is manda­tory to get a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate in three months, ac­com­pa­nied by my fa­ther, we got tired of do­ing the rounds of the Chat­tra­p­ati Samb­ha­ji­na­gar Ma­ha­pa­lika. We paid umpteen vis­its and wrote let­ters and fol­low-up let­ters on 1 Au­gust 2023 and there­after on 16 No­vem­ber 2023 but to no avail. The of­fi­cers were vir­tu­ally forc­ing us to take a cer­tifi­cate un­der the Hindu Mar­riage Act.”

We had to stand up for our rights and we are grate­ful to the court for pro­tect­ing our con­sti­tu­tional rights un­der Ar­ti­cles 14, 19, 21, and 29 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia.

Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh, pe­ti­tioner

Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh told WSN, “The state of­fi­cials did not pay heed to Sec­tion 6 (5) of the amend­ment to the Anand Mar­riage Act, which said, “The par­ties to the mar­riage, whose mar­riage has been reg­is­tered un­der this Act, shall not be re­quired to get their mar­riage reg­is­tered un­der any other law for the time be­ing in force (in­clud­ing State Act).”

“Fi­nally, we stood up for our rights and pe­ti­tioned to court to which we are grate­ful for pro­tect­ing our con­sti­tu­tional right un­der Ar­ti­cles 14, 19, 21 and 29 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia.”

I thanked the judges for their favourable or­der not only on be­half of my hus­band and me but also on be­half of the en­tire Sikh com­mu­nity. I told them that this or­der will ben­e­fit every­one in Ma­ha­rash­tra.

Ad­vo­cate Satvin­der Kaur, pe­ti­tioner 

Speak­ing to The World Sikh News, Satvin­der Kaur said, “I thanked the judges for their favourable or­der not only on be­half of my hus­band and me but also on be­half of the en­tire Sikh com­mu­nity. I told them that this or­der would ben­e­fit every­one in Ma­ha­rash­tra.”

Given the fact that the lawyer cou­ple had suf­fered enough un­nec­es­sar­ily, adopt­ing a no-non­sense ap­proach and con­scious of the pos­si­bil­ity of pre­var­i­ca­tion by the ad­min­is­tra­tion, the judges of the Bom­bay High Court spelled out a forth­right or­der, say­ing, “We di­rect the Cor­po­ra­tion to is­sue a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate to the Pe­ti­tion­ers on 22.12.2023 af­ter com­plet­ing all the for­mal­i­ties and the Pe­ti­tion­ers can col­lect the mar­riage cer­tifi­cate at 12.00 noon on 22.12.2023. For the said pur­pose, the Pe­ti­tion­ers would ap­proach the Ward Of­fi­cer/​Zonal Of­fi­cer of Zone-9 on 19.12.2023 at 11.00 a.m. only to co­op­er­ate in com­plet­ing the re­quired for­mal­i­ties, if not com­pleted. We record that the Ward Of­fi­cer/​Zonal Of­fi­cer shall en­sure that the mar­riage cer­tifi­cate is is­sued on 22.12.2023 and we would not grant a sin­gle-day ex­ten­sion.”

A happy fa­ther of Satvin­der Kaur -Man­mo­han Singh Bindra who laboured hard to get her daugh­ter to be­come a lawyer and who was with her in thick and thin through this cam­paign to get a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate re­marked, “I am proud of my daugh­ter. My whole fam­ily is happy. I am glad that my daugh­ter has made the com­mu­nity proud.”

The or­der of the Bom­bay High Court has come as a re­lief to the Sikh lawyer cou­ple. More so, it sets a bench­mark for many state gov­ern­ments to fol­low as though the Anand Mar­riage Act was passed by the British Im­pe­r­ial Privy Coun­cil in 1909, then amended on 7 June 2012, by in­ser­tion of Sec­tion 6 to the Act, it has taken many years for state gov­ern­ments to frame rules there­un­der. Even Ma­ha­rash­tra no­ti­fied them on 23 April 2020. More­over, even af­ter no­ti­fi­ca­tion, there is no step taken for im­ple­men­ta­tion of the same by in­cor­po­rat­ing the pro­vi­sion of Sikh mar­riage reg­is­tra­tion un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act.

The de­lay by re­spec­tive state gov­ern­ments in In­dia to frame rules and then en­sure their im­ple­men­ta­tion is not just ap­a­thy but also an at­tempt to dis­suade Sikhs from reg­is­ter­ing their mar­riages un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, 1909 which cat­e­gor­i­cally de­scribes their dis­tinc­tive­ness from Hin­dus and oth­ers. It is also a re­flec­tion of lax­ity by the Sikhs them­selves to seek reg­is­tra­tion un­der the Act.

This is not just ap­a­thy but also an at­tempt to dis­suade Sikhs from reg­is­ter­ing their mar­riages un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, which cat­e­gor­i­cally de­scribes their dis­tinc­tive­ness from Hin­dus and oth­ers.

Upon the re­quest of Am­rit­pal Singh, who ap­peared through video-con­fer­enc­ing, the judges di­rected that the said or­der be sent to all lo­cal au­thor­i­ties in the State of Ma­ha­rash­tra. It was men­tioned in the or­der that, “The Reg­is­trar (Ju­di­cial) to place this or­der be­fore the Chief Sec­re­tary, State of Ma­ha­rash­tra so as to in­form all the lo­cal au­thor­i­ties that this Act and the Rules there­un­der have to be im­ple­mented in the ap­pro­pri­ate cases of mar­riages.”

“The Reg­is­trar (Ju­di­cial) to place this or­der be­fore the Chief Sec­re­tary, State of Ma­ha­rash­tra so as to in­form all the lo­cal au­thor­i­ties that this Act and the Rules there­un­der have to be im­ple­mented in the ap­pro­pri­ate cases of mar­riages.”

Jus­tice Ravin­dra V. Ghuge and Jus­tice Y. G. Kho­bra­gade, Bom­bay High Court

An­other as­pect of the case de­serves at­ten­tion. This was not the first time that the lawyer cou­ple had to court. Soon af­ter their mar­riage, they ap­proached the Bom­bay bench of the Bom­bay High Court seek­ing is­suance of no­ti­fi­ca­tion of rules un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act, which pe­ti­tion was ren­dered in­fruc­tu­ous when the state sub­mit­ted that the rules, called Ma­ha­rash­tra Anand Mar­riages Reg­is­tra­tion Rules, 2020 were in force. Only af­ter the pe­ti­tion of the lawyer-cou­ple, the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra made the gazette no­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Rules, pub­lic.

Am­rit­pal Singh, who has taken Pan­thic is­sues to court on many oc­ca­sions, told WSN, “It is now the duty of the Sikhs in Ma­ha­rash­tra to reg­is­ter their mar­riages un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act. Sikh Gur­d­waras and other in­sti­tu­tions also must spread aware­ness about this.”

It is now the duty of the Sikhs in Ma­ha­rash­tra to reg­is­ter their mar­riages un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act. Sikh Gur­d­waras and other in­sti­tu­tions also must spread aware­ness about this.

Mum­bai-based Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh, Pe­ti­tioner

WSN notes here that many states of In­dia have framed rules un­der the Anand Mar­riage Act but their im­ple­men­ta­tion has not per­co­lated down to the level of of­fi­cials who are sup­posed to is­sue the mar­riage cer­tifi­cates.  Sikhs to re­mem­ber the adage, “Eter­nal vig­i­lance is the price of lib­erty.”