The Special Marriage Act,1872 In Bangladesh

SPECIAL MARRIAGE      An Act to give a form of Marriage in certain cases. Preamble     WHEREAS it is convenient to afford a form of marriage for persons who do not admit the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion, and for persons who allow the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion and to legalize positive marriages the validity of which is suspicious; It is hereby enacted as follows:– Local point 1. This Act extends to the whole of Bangladesh]. surroundings upon which marriages under Act may be illustrious 2. Marriages may be renowned under this Act among persons neither of whom professes the Christian or the Jewish, or the Hindu or the Muslim or the Parsi or the Buddhist, or the Sikh or the Jaina religion, or amid persons each of whom professes one or other of the subsequent religions, that is to say, the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion upon the following conditions:– (1) neither party must, at the time of the marriage, have a husband or wife alive: (2) the man must have fulfilled his age of eighteen years, and the woman her age of fourteen years, according to the Gregorian calendar: (3) each party must, if he or she has not completed the age of twenty-one years, have obtained the consent of his or her father or sentinel to the marriage: (4) the parties must not be connected to each other in any degree of consanguinity or empathy which would, according to any law to which either of them is subject, deliver a marriage between them illegal. 1st Proviso- No such law or custom, other than one involving to consanguinity or empathy, shall thwart them from marrying. 2nd Proviso- No law or custom as to consanguinity shall avert them from marrying, except a affiliation can be traced between the parties through some general ancestor, who stands to each of them in a nearer affiliation than that of great-great-grand-father or great-great-grand-mother, or unless one of the parties is the lineal forebear, or the brother or sister of some lineal antecedent, of the other. Appointment of Marriage Registrars 3. The Government may employ one or more Registrars beneath this Act, either by name or as advantage any office for the time being, for any segment of the province focus to its organization. The officer so fixed shall be called "Registrar of Marriages in Act III of 1872," and is hereinafter referred to as "the Registrar". The part of region for which any such officer is allotted shall be deemed his district. One of the parties to planned marriage to provide notice to Registrar 4. When a marriage is proposed to be solemnized underneath this Act, one of the parties must offer notice in writing to the Registrar before whom it is to be solemnized. The Registrar to whom such notice is specified must be the Registrar of a district within which one at least of the parties to the marriage has resided for fourteen days before such notice is given. Such notice may be in the form given in the First timetable to this Act. Notice to be filed and copy entered in the Marriage Notice Book 5. The Registrar shall file all such notices and maintain them with the proceedings of his office, and shall also immediately pierce a right copy of every such notice in a book to be for that rationale furnished to him by the Government, to be called the "Marriage Notice Book under Act III of 1872," and such book shall be release at all sensible times, without fee, to all persons eager of inspecting the same. hostility to Marriage 6. Fourteen days after notice of an future marriage has been given less than section 4, such marriage may be solemnized, unless it has been formerly objected to in the manner hereinafter mentioned. Any person may objective to any such marriage on the land that it would flout some one or more of the setting given in clauses (1), (2), (3) or (4) of section 2. The panorama of the qualm made shall be recorded in writing by the Registrar in the register, and shall, if needed, be read over and explained to the person production the protest, and shall be signed by him or on his behalf. system on receipt of objection Objector may file suit 7. On delivery of such observe of objection the Registrar shall not continue to solemnize the marriage until the lapse of fourteen days from the unloading of such objection, if there be a Court of skilled jurisdiction unwrap at the time, or, if there be no such Court open at the time, until the drop of fourteen days from the opening of such Court. The person objecting to the anticipated marriage may file a outfit in any Civil Court having local jurisdiction (other than a Court of Small Causes) for a declaratory decree, declaring that such marriage would disobey some one or more of the locale prearranged in clauses (1), (2), (3) or (4) of section 2. documentation of filing of costume to be lodged with Registrar 8. The officer before whom such suit is filed shall thereupon give the person presenting it a certificate to the result that such suit has been filed. If such certificate be lodged with the Registrar within fourteen days from the acceptance of notice of objection, if there be a Court of able jurisdiction open at the time, or, if there be no such Court open at the time, within fourteen days of the gap of such Court, the marriage shall not be solemnized till the result of such Court has been given and the period allowable by law for appeals from such conclusion has onwards; or, if there be an appeal from such verdict, till the judgment of the Appellate Court has been given. If such certificate be not wedged in the style and within the period set in the last earlier paragraph, or if the decision of the Court be that such marriage would not contravene any one or more of the setting prescribed in clauses (1), (2), (3) or (4) of section 2, such marriage may be solemnized. If the decision of such Court be that the marriage in question would contravene any one or more of the conditions prescribed in clauses (1), (2), (3) or (4) of section 2, the marriage shall not be solemnized. Court may fine when objection not sensible 9. Any Court in which any such suit as is referred to in section 7 is filed may, if it shall emerge to it that the objection was not realistic and bonafide, impose a fine, not beyond one thousand rupees, on the person objecting, and prize it, or any part of it, to the parties to the deliberate marriage. assertion by parties and witnesses 10. Before the marriage is solemnized, the parties and three witnesses shall, in the incidence of the Registrar, sign a statement in the form enclosed in the second timetable to this Act. If either party has not done the age of twenty-one years, the avowal shall also be signed by his or her father or guardian, excluding in the case of a widow, and, in every case, it shall be countersigned by the Registrar. Marriage how to be solemnized 11. The marriage shall be solemnized in the company of the Registrar and of the three witnesses who signed the speech. It may be solemnized in any form, provided that each party says to the other, in the incidence and inquiry of the Registrar and witnesses, "I [A], take the [B], to be my lawful wife (or husband)." Place where marriage may be solemnized 12. The marriage may be eminent either at the office of the Registrar or at such other place, within logical distance of the office of the Registrar, as the parties want: Provided that the Government may set the condition below which such marriages may be solemnized at places other than the Registrar's office, and the further fees to be paid thereupon. Certificate of marriage 13. When the marriage has been solemnized, the Registrar shall enter a certificate thereof in a book to be kept by him for that purpose and to be called the "Marriage Certificate Book under Act III of 1872," in the form given in the third schedule to this Act, and such certificate shall be signed by the parties to the marriage and the three witnesses. Transmission of certified copies of entries in Marriage Certificate Book to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages 13A. The Registrar shall send to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the territories inside which his district is put, at such hiatus as the Government from time to time directs, a true copy expert by him, in such form as the Government from time to time prescribes, of all entries ended by him in the said marriage-certificate book since the last of such interval.] charge 14. The Government shall prescribe the amount to be paid to the Registrar for the duties to be discharged by him over this Act. The Registrar may, if he thinks fit, exact disbursement of any such fee before the solemnization of the marriage or concert of any other duty in esteem of which it is billed. The said Marriage-Certificate Book shall at all sound times be open for check, and shall be allowable as confirmation of the truth of the statements therein restricted. Certified extracts therefrom shall on application be given by the Registrar on the expense to him by the hopeful of a fee to be preset by the Government for each such remove. Penalty on married person marrying again under Act 15. Every person who, being at the time married, procures a marriage of himself to be solemnized under this Act, shall be deemed to have faithful an offence under section 494 or section 495 of the Penal Code, as the case may be; and the marriage so solemnized is negated. sentence of bigamy 16. Every person married beneath this Act who, during the life time of his or her wife or husband, contracts any other marriage, shall be subject to the penalties provided in sections 494 and 495 of the Penal Code for the offence of marrying again during the lifetime of a husband or wife, whatever may be the belief which he or she ostensible at the time of such second marriage. Divorce Act to apply 17. The Divorce Act shall concern to all marriages constricted under this Act, and any such marriage may be confirmed null or dissolved in the manner therein provided, and for the causes therein mentioned, or on the position that it contravenes some one or more of the conditions agreed in clauses (1), (2), (3) or (4) of section 2 of this Act. Law to apply to topic of marriages below Act 18. The matter of marriages solemnized in this Act shall, if they marry under this Act, be deemed to be focus to the law to which their fathers were subject as to the exclusion of marriages by reason of consanguinity and kinship, and the provisos to section 2 of this Act shall affect to them. savings of marriages solemnized otherwise than under Act 19. Nothing in this Act contained shall affect the strength of any marriage not solemnized under its provisions; nor shall this Act be deemed openly or ultimately to affect the weight of any mode of astringent marriage; but, if the validity of any such mode shall hereafter come into question before any Court, such question shall be decided as if this Act had not been passed. [Repealed] 20. [Repealed by the Repealing Act, 1876 (Act No. XII of 1876)]. Penalty for signing declarations or certificates containing fake statements 21. Every person making, signing or attesting any speech or certificate prescribed by this Act, containing a statement which is false, and which he either knows or believes to be false or does not judge to be accurate, shall be deemed responsible of the offence described in section 199 of the Penal Code. upshot of certain marriages on coparcenary 22. The marriage under this Act of any member of an whole family who professes the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion shall be deemed to achieve his disjointing from such family. Rights of succession in certain cases of marriage under Act 23. A person professing the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion who marries under this Act shall have the same rights and be subject to the same disabilities in observe to any right of succession to any assets as a person to whom the Caste Disabilities Removal Act, 1850, applies: Provided that nothing in this section shall confer on any person any right to any religious office or service, or to the management of any religious or charitable trust. Succession to the property of parties married under Act 24. Succession to the belongings of any person professing the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion who marries under this Act, and to the goods of the issue of such marriage shall be synchronized by the provisions of the Succession Act, 1925]. Person marrying under Act not to have exactly of adoption 25. No person professing the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion who marries under this Act shall have any right of adoption. Adoption by father of person marrying above Act 26. When a person professing the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion marries under this Act, his father shall, if he has no other son living, have the precise to espouse a new person as a son in the law to which he is theme.