The Gujarat High Court ruled on 23 June 2026 that registration cannot substitute for the essential ceremonies of a Hindu marriage, and declared a registered marriage null and void because no rites had been performed.
The facts were unusual enough to make the point cleanly. A man who had moved to the United Kingdom for work and study found that the daughter of his employer was claiming to be his legally married wife. She went to his family home in Ahmedabad and showed his parents a marriage certificate. He said he had never married her, that no Hindu rites or ceremonies had taken place, and that they had never lived together as a married couple, and suggested his signature on the marriage documents may have been obtained without his consent while he was working at her father's company.
When the matter reached the Ahmedabad family court she accepted in her written statement that no rites or rituals had been performed, that no legal marriage existed, and that they had no relationship as husband and wife. He applied for a decree on that admission. The family court rejected the application on 13 November 2025 and dismissed the petition, and he appealed to the high court, where he was represented by advocate Rahil P Jain.
The high court's reading of Section 8 of the Hindu Marriage Act is the part with reach beyond this case. Registration is a record of a marriage, not the thing that creates one, and where the essential ceremonies are absent the entry in the register has nothing to record. That is settled law rather than a new rule, but it is settled law that a great many people assume works the other way round.