NEW DELHI, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government has decided to make registration of all marriages compulsory in this country.
"In order to provide evidentiary value to matrimonial and maintenance cases and prevent unnecessary harassment meted out to women, it has been decided to provide for compulsory registration of marriages," Indian Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in Parliament.
"In 2006, the Supreme Court directed that registration of marriages should be compulsory for all citizens, irrespective of their religion," he added.
Earlier this month, the Law Commission of India had also recommended that registration of marriages should be made compulsory under law to prevent marriage frauds, bigamy, child marriages and desertions of women by their husbands.
Currently marriage registration exists for most of the religions but not all -- as Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews have separate marriage acts. Millions of marriages go unregistered in India every year.
