On February 20, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi proposed an amendment to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006, introducing a stricter, multi-stage verification process. Couples seeking to register their marriage would be required to submit identity documents of their parents and declare that they have informed them about the marriage. Parents would then be officially notified within 10 working days after an application is accepted. Registration would take place only after at least 30 days, once the Registrar is satisfied that all requirements have been met.

Calling the proposal a matter of “public importance,” Sanghavi said the government was “not against love marriages” but was acting to protect “the dignity of girls and Sanatan Dharma.” He said the changes were necessary to prevent misuse of marriage laws by “anti-social elements”, particularly those who allegedly hide their identities to “trap daughters of Gujarat” in cases of so-called love jihad.

“If someone deceives a daughter of the State by hiding his identity, this government will ensure strict action,” Sanghavi said. “Today’s time demands a strong armour that needs to be created for young girls.”

The proposal has been opened for public suggestions for 30 days, after which a committee will review responses before the amendment is finalised. With nearly two-thirds of the population under the age of 35 in a country where interfaith and intercaste marriages often attract hostility, requiring parental involvement risks exposing couples, especially women, to familial pressure and violence, and could undermine the constitutional right of adults to choose their partners freely, legal experts say.

A constitutional fault line

The constitutional record on the right of adults to marry by choice is well established. Article 21 guarantees the protection of life and personal liberty, and courts have consistently interpreted this right to include the freedom to choose a partner without interference from either the state or the family. As such, the Gujarat proposal stands as a direct challenge to established constitutional principles.

Audrey D’Mello, advocate and director of the Majlis Legal Centre, said marriage is fundamentally a personal decision that cannot be treated as a matter requiring external approval or disclosure. “Once a person becomes an adult, all decisions rest with that individual. Your signature alone is required. No one else can give consent on your behalf,” she said. Even a requirement to inform parents, she said, could have serious consequences in the Indian social context, where family authority continues to shape decisions around marriage, particularly for women. In many cases, families strongly oppose intercaste and interfaith relationships, and disclosure can expose couples to coercion or violence.

“We understand the legal meaning of consent and adulthood, but in India there is still strong patriarchal control over women’s sexuality and over whom they marry,” she said. “If women who make independent choices are required to inform their parents, they may be put at grave risk. We have seen ‘honour killings’ and violent reactions from families.”

D’Mello said the requirement also raises broader concerns about the increasing regulation of young people’s relationships in the name of protection. “What is particularly troubling is that these measures are justified as protecting women. The language often used refers to ‘love jihad’ and claims that Muslim men are targeting Hindu women. This framing assumes that women have no agency and no capacity to make decisions for themselves.”

Such policies, she said, reduce women to passive subjects rather than individuals capable of making choices.

She pointed to earlier debates around raising the age of consent from 16 to 18 in 2013, which she said were influenced by the belief that girls should not be sexually active before the legal age of marriage. “But young people continue to be sexually active and no law is going to change that,” she said. “We call ourselves a constitutional democracy with guaranteed rights but we still operate within narrow patriarchal norms.”

D’Mello warned that once such measures are introduced, they often become entrenched before they can be legally challenged. “It is worrying to see the direction in which things are going,” she said, noting especially the recent remarks by Justice B.V. Nagarathna cautioning against premarital physical relationships and observing that a man and a woman are “total strangers” before they are married. “When the higher judiciary can make such remarks, it is extremely concerning.”

The proposal also comes amid a wider climate of surveillance of young people’s relationships. Incidents of moral policing by vigilante groups such as Bajrang Dal around Valentine’s Day are an example of this.

Courts and the right to choose

Judicial precedent on the right of adults to marry by choice is consistent and extensive. In its 2021 decision in Laxmibai Chandaragi v. State of Karnataka, the Supreme Court reiterated that the consent of “the family or the community or the clan” is not necessary once two adults decide to marry. The Court described individual choice as inseparable from dignity and held that such choices cannot be subordinated to notions of “class honour” or collective social control.

Earlier decisions had articulated the same principle. In Shafin Jahan v K.M. Ashokan (2018), the Supreme Court upheld the right of an adult woman, Hadiya, to marry a person of her choice and to choose her religion, overturning a Kerala High Court judgment that had annulled an interfaith marriage by treating the woman as vulnerable and in need of protection.

In Lata Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2006), the Court recognised the family itself as a possible site of violence and affirmed the right of adults to enter intercaste marriages without interference.

High courts have followed this constitutional trajectory. The Delhi High Court in 2009 and the Allahabad High Court in 2021 struck down the mandatory 30-day public notice requirement under the Special Marriage Act, ruling that such disclosure violated privacy and exposed couples to risk.

Reality on the ground

Rights activist Lata Singh, whose case became a landmark ruling on intercaste marriages and who has long worked with couples facing familial opposition, said the Gujarat proposal runs contrary to Article 21 and to multiple Supreme Court rulings affirming the autonomy of adults.

“When do young people go to court? They go when they know their parents will not agree. That is exactly why they approach the courts,” she said. “If the state says parents must be involved, then the law says one thing and the state is doing something else.”

Singh also noted that legal protections, such as in the case of Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, which laid down guidelines to prevent honour-based violence, often exist only on paper, while enforcement on the ground remains inconsistent. Even when officials are aware of Supreme Court guidelines, she said, they frequently rely on personal judgment or social pressures while dealing with couples who have eloped.

Recalling a recent visit to a police station, Singh described seeing adult couples being detained at the insistence of families despite having married legally. Police officials justified such actions as a way to prevent violence from relatives, she said, illustrating how informal practices often override legal safeguards.

She added that interfaith marriages have become particularly difficult in recent years, especially in States with anti-conversion laws, including Gujarat. While the legal framework appears straightforward on paper, she said, bureaucratic procedures and social hostility create significant barriers for couples seeking to marry freely. “Our constitutional rights say one thing, but state actions say something else. No state should be above the law.”

Recent developments in Gujarat suggest the depth of social resistance to marriages by choice. In a recent gram sabha resolution passed in Nand village in Gujarat’s Kheda district, local authorities imposed a social boycott on couples who marry against their families’ wishes. Such couples were barred from community facilities, religious gatherings, and social functions—an indication of the social sanctions that often accompany marriages without parental approval.

For meaningful protection, Singh argued, young people must be made aware of their legal rights and that Supreme Court guidelines must be implemented more seriously by officials. She also called for “honour killing” to be recognised as a separate criminal offence.

Couples under pressure

Civil society organisations working with interfaith couples say the Gujarat proposal reflects broader patterns of social control. Asif Iqbal, co-founder of Dhanak of Humanity, an organisation providing socio-legal support to intercaste and interfaith couples, said the proposed parental-consent requirement marks a significant departure from the original purpose of marriage registration laws.

According to Iqbal, Gujarat already has the Compulsory Marriage Registration Rules, 2006, introduced in line with Supreme Court directions requiring the registration of all marriages. These rules were intended to bring religious marriages into a formal legal framework so that spouses, particularly women, would have documentary proof of marriage in cases of dispute or separation. Parental consent was never part of that framework, he said.

Iqbal said the new requirement is likely to have its greatest impact on interfaith marriages, which already face significant legal and procedural hurdles. The only clear statutory route available to interfaith couples is through the Special Marriage Act, a process he described as lengthy and often unsafe for couples facing family opposition.

“In crisis situations, once couples leave home, the first thing that comes to their mind is to get married quickly,” he said. Lawyers often advise couples to marry under religious law as a faster alternative, he added. This route has commonly been used by intercaste couples where both partners are Hindu. In some cases, interfaith couples also rely on religious ceremonies, including Arya Samaj marriages involving conversion, after which the marriage certificate is used for registration under State rules.

The parental-consent requirement, he said, could effectively close off these alternative routes. “The larger idea is to make things so difficult that couples cannot marry easily. If it were possible, they would even repeal the Special Marriage Act,” he said.

Iqbal said that while intercaste couples may sometimes find administrative workarounds because of relatively greater social acceptance, Hindu-Muslim marriages are likely to face stricter scrutiny. Even when marriage certificates do not explicitly record religion, identity documents often reveal religious backgrounds through parents’ names and other details.

This, he said, also exposes a broader contradiction between Supreme Court directives and State-level policies. In Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, the Supreme Court directed States to establish safe houses and provide protection to intercaste and interfaith couples facing threats to their lives and liberty. While some States such as Delhi and Maharashtra have functioning safe houses, implementation remains uneven, he said.

Gujarat itself has stated that it maintains a safe house for couples in Gandhinagar. “So on the one hand, the government says it is providing protection to couples, and on the other hand it is introducing rules that make marriages more difficult,” he said. “The contradiction is very clear.”

Iqbal said such measures reinforce the idea that marriages are acceptable only when families approve, leaving the family as the central authority over individual choice. “The family remains the main controlling institution both before and after marriage.”

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