Please help! (issues with registering marriage)

[Harsh_77 716]

Hi Rock and Harsh, thanks for your comments!

I actually think US citizens are allowed to get married under the HMA, as it describes in the US embassy: http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/service/other-citizen-services/marriage.html

So we got more info on the registrar in his city... it seems the registrar IS willing to register the marriage (and least this is what he says right now, a month before the wedding, though we hope he won't chance his stance later), but that guy wants a 25,000 rupee bribe (about $560). We feel this is so wrong having to bribe the guy to do what he is supposed to do anyways.

I asked my fiance if we couldn't file a complaint on this guy for asking for a bribe, but my fiance says that many such complaints have been filed over the years and are still pending in the courts. So if we are morally opposed to bribes, then we'd either have to wait years to get married in India, or we'd have to just cancel the wedding plans (with a loss of plane tickets, hotel fees etc) and get married in the US. So it looks like we might just end up paying the bribe, as we are stuck.

If you think HMA might be ok then you can go with it, that would be a personal call.

So he is willing to register the marriage, you can ask your fiancé to check out some lawyer and she what they are asking for fees, they might be working with this guy day in and day out and he might reduce the amount in bribe.

25K is bit too much 5k would be max….. that’s exact reason I had a lawyer, I paid him the fees and from his fees I guess he took care of all the ppl, you might still have to pay the clerk after registrar, who would actually write the certificate and there would be more ppl in line asking for bribe.

Its common laws are not enforced, so unfortunately even if you don’t like it you might have to pay ppl to get your work done.