LUCKNOW: The Allahabad high court’s Lucknow bench has ruled that it should be optional rather than mandatory for an interfaith couple to give 30 days’ prior notice to a marriage officer to register their wedding under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
Enforcing a notice period on the couple is tantamount to intruding on their fundamental right to privacy and liberty, the court said.
“If the couple doesn’t want to go for publication of the 30-day notice, the marriage officer has to solemnise their wedding forthwith,” Justice Vivek Chaudhary said while disposing of a habeas corpus petition filed by a Hindu man married to a woman who was born Muslim but converted before the wedding.