Preliminary rules for registration of Hindu marriages in Sindh finalised

A special committee of the provincial government on Sunday finalised the draft of rules for the first-ever mechanism for registration of Hindu community marriages in Sindh.

Formulated in line with the Sindh Hindus Marriage Act, 2016, the set of regulations were finalised during a meeting chaired by the chief minister’s special assistant on minorities’ affairs, Dr Khatu Mal Jeewan. 

The draft would now be discussed in the Sindh Cabinet’s next meeting, scheduled for October 26, which will be presided over by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.   Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jeewan said that facilitating members of different religious communities was the foremost priority of the provincial government.

Sindh Secretary for Minorities’ Affairs Farooq Azam informed the committee that the rules have been drafted in view of the true spirit of the Sindh Hindus Marriage Act, so that members of the community do not face any difficulties in having their marriages registered.

Senator Hari Ram was also all praise for the act and observed that implementation of a proper system of marriage registration would benefit the Hindu community greatly.   The rules were penned after recommendations were gathered from 24 different concerned stakeholders.

Speaking to The News, Dr Jeewan said parliamentarians belonging to religious minorities, local government agencies, non-governmental organisations and the provincial secretaries for law and local government were among other government officials involved in the finalisation of the rules.

He said the Sindh Hindus Marriage Act had designated the relevant local government agencies as being the lawful authorities in the province to properly register marriages of the Hindu community.

Dr Jeewan added that the local government agencies would not be inconvenienced in registering the marriages since union councils/union committees were already involved in the process of issuing birth and death certificates and B-Forms for children, in line with the National Database and Registration Authority’s (Nadra) system.

The system shall be so defined that it links up with Nadra’s process for issuance of computerised marriage certificates, the CM’s aide observed. Commenting on the need for the law, Dr Jeewan said it was a requirement since there was no formal mechanism for the state to record Hindu marriages. “Only an informal process was in place, that too at the community level,” he said.

In the absence of a marriage registration system in the province, the community had to face serious problems in matters of ownership and transfer of property, besides other issues of inheritance, the special assistant stated.  

The Act

As per the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act, “Every marriage solemnised under this Act shall be registered with the Union Council/Ward or any other municipal authority where the marriage ceremony took place, within 45 days of the solemnisation.”

Section 9 of the provincial act maintains that the, “The government through a notification published in the official gazette will prescribe a fee for registering marriages and issuing certified copies of the (marriage) certificates.”

Furthermore, Section 4 of the Act prescribes conditions for a Hindu marriage under which a marriage may only be solemnised if the conditions mentioned in the act are fulfilled.

The conditions included parties to the marriage being 18 years of age or above; the parties are able to not only give consent but are also free in consenting to the marriage.

Among other conditions was that the couple contracting marriage did not fall under the ‘prohibited degree’ of relationship; that neither of the parties have a spouse living at the time of the marriage. The marriage could be solemnised and registered in the presence of at least two witnesses.

Section 5 of the Act states that, “Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, a marriage may be solemnised in accordance with the customary rites and ceremonies of either party to the marriage.”

National Assembly’s Act

The National Assembly also earlier this year passed the Hindu Marriage Act, 2017; however, the law is only applicable in Islamabad and in the provinces of Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani told The News that the two laws would overrule each other as the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act, only dealt with the process of registration of marriages at the provincial level, while the former provided a much broader framework concerning the marital and matrimonial affairs of the Hindu community.

He said the process and system for registration of Hindu marriages should commence without any further delay, regardless of where it is promulgated first. “At the moment, a mechanism for the purpose is yet to get under way despite separate laws being passed by both the federal and Sindh governments.” The rules for the federal government’s law were yet to be framed, the MNA stated.