Notaries Not Entitled to Register Marriages, Issue Marriage Certificates: Orissa High Court

Cuttack: Notaries are not authorised to register marriages or issue marriage certificates, opined the Orissa High Court.

A Division Bench of Orissa High Court comprising Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo and Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra directed the notaries to refrain from issuing marriage certificates.

“Due to such extra-legal and subterfuge arrangements by the Notaries, parties are made to believe that they are legally married when in fact their marriage do not have even the slightest of legal sanctity,” the bench of the Orissa High Court observed.

“Time and again Courts across the country have echoed it in identical voice that Notaries are neither authorised to issue certificates of marriage nor they are legally entitled to notarize any signed declaration of marriage, which is apparently beyond the scope of their functions prescribed under section 8 of the Notaries Act, 1952 (Act no.53 of 1952),” the Orissa High Court added.

The Orissa High Court came up with this observation while hearing a case in which a man alleged that his wife was illegally detained by her parents. The High Court found that as evidence of their marriage, the petitioner and the girl had a marriage declaration document on which both the petitioner and the girl had put their signatures while it was sworn before a notary, reported LiveLaw.