The next hour, if you are in danger right now
On 27 March 2018 the Supreme Court ordered every State Government in India to build a protection system for couples in exactly your position, and gave them six weeks to file compliance reports. Whether your own district ever built it is the question this page answers, and what to do when it did not.
In Lata Singh v. State of U.P., (2006) 5 SCC 475, the Supreme Court said: “once a person becomes a major he or she can marry whosoever he/she likes. If the parents of the boy or girl do not approve of such inter-caste or inter-religious marriage the maximum they can do is that they can cut-off social relations with the son or the daughter, but they cannot give threats or commit or instigate acts of violence.”
It then directed the administration and police throughout the country to ensure a major couple is neither harassed nor threatened, and that anyone who threatens them is taken to task by the police instituting criminal proceedings. That direction was reaffirmed in Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, Writ Petition Civil No. 231 of 2010, decided on 27 March 2018.
The judgment groups its directions under three headings. Which heading your demand sits under changes how you word your complaint.
| Heading | What it orders |
|---|---|
| I. Preventive Steps | States must map the districts and villages with honour killings or khap gatherings in the last five years, and the Home Secretary must warn those SPs to watch inter-caste and inter-religious marriages there. A proposed khap gathering must be reported to the DSP, who must prevent it, or attend in person, warn every participant of personal criminal liability, and move the District Magistrate for prohibitory orders and arrests. |
| II. Remedial Measures | If a khap passes a diktat against a couple, the police must immediately lodge an FIR. Immediate steps should be taken to give the couple security and, if necessary, remove them to a safe house. On a complaint from the couple, the DM or SP must hand a preliminary inquiry to an officer of the rank of Additional Superintendent of Police, who must report to the SP in not later than one week. On that report the SP must direct an FIR against those threatening you, supervised personally by the DSP. |
| III. Punitive Measures | Non-compliance by police or district officials is deliberate negligence or misconduct, with departmental action to finish preferably within six months. States must create Special Cells in every district made up of the Superintendent of Police, the District Social Welfare Officer and the District Adi-Dravidar Welfare Officer, to receive complaints of harassment of and threat to couples of inter-caste marriage. Those cells must run a 24 hour helpline. Honour killing cases go to a designated or fast track court, heard day to day, concluded preferably within six months of cognizance. |
Notice that the Special Cell, the helpline and the fast track direction sit under Punitive Measures in the judgment itself. When you ask your SP for the cell, you invoke a direction whose breach the same judgment treats as misconduct. Compliance reports were due before the Supreme Court Registry in six weeks, in 2018. That deadline passing does not mean your district complied.
This is where most pages overpromise. Direction II uses two different verbs in one paragraph. On moving you to safety, immediate steps “should be taken to provide security to the couple/family and, if necessary, to remove them to a safe house within the same district or elsewhere”. On building the place, it says only that “The State Government may consider of establishing a safe house at each District Headquarter for that purpose.”
The duty to get you somewhere safe is firm. A building called a safe house standing ready at your district headquarters is not. Ask before you travel anywhere expecting a door to open.
Where one exists, the judgment sets the terms. It covers unmarried couples whose relationship is opposed by family, local community or khaps, and married couples in an opposed inter-caste or inter-religious marriage. The District Magistrate and SP supervise it. Officers must first satisfy themselves that you are capable adults. Charges are nominal, the stay initially one month, extendable monthly, not exceeding one year in aggregate. The same direction says the couple may be given logistical support for solemnising the marriage and for being duly registered under police protection, if they so desire.
Free legal aid here is not means tested. Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 entitles a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and separately “a woman or a child”, to legal services under the Act. Between those two clauses most couples in this situation qualify. Walk into the District Legal Services Authority in your district court complex, or call 15100.
This is the standard counter-attack, and it is usually aimed at the husband. Read what the sections require before you panic.
| What they allege | What the section actually says |
|---|---|
| Kidnapping, section 137 BNS | Kidnapping from lawful guardianship means taking or enticing “any child or any person of unsound mind” out of the keeping of the lawful guardian. Section 2 of the BNS defines a child as any person below the age of eighteen years. An adult has no lawful guardian to be taken from. |
| Abduction, section 138 BNS | Compelling a person to go from a place by force, or inducing them by deceitful means. It is a definition, not a standalone offence, and is punished only when joined to an intent named in another section. |
| Section 87 BNS | Kidnapping or abducting a woman to compel her marriage requires that she be compelled to marry “against her will”, or forced or seduced to illicit intercourse. A woman who married of her own will does not fit it. |
The case turns on two facts: her age, and her own words. Both are in your control.
Her statement before a Magistrate. Section 183 of the BNSS replaced section 164 of the old Code. Read its limits before travelling anywhere. It lets “any Magistrate of the District in which the information about commission of any offence has been registered” record a statement made in the course of an investigation. So it works once an FIR exists, not as a pre-emptive walk-in, and it is a Magistrate of the district where the FIR was registered, not wherever you happen to be. Plan it with a lawyer.
You do not have to walk into their police station. In Laxmibai Chandaragi B v. State of Karnataka, Writ Petition Criminal No. 359 of 2020, decided on 8 February 2021, a father filed a missing person FIR in Belagavi after his adult daughter married a man in another state. The investigating officer pressed her to travel to Karnataka to give her statement, warning that her parents might otherwise file a false case that would get her husband arrested. The Supreme Court strongly deprecated that conduct, said the officer could have recorded her statement where she was living, ordered him sent for counselling, and quashed the FIR.
This week. Send the SHO of the station holding the FIR, and that district SP, a registered-post letter enclosing the marriage certificate, both age proofs, and a signed statement by her that she left of her own free will, is not confined, and wants no action against her husband. Keep the receipts. If the FIR survives, the High Court has inherent power saved by section 528 of the BNSS, and quashing a false FIR is what that power is for. Use the free legal aid above rather than facing it alone.
Registration is your strongest single piece of evidence. Under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 it is also a public announcement of where you are.
Section 5 requires notice to the Marriage Officer of a district where one of you has lived at least thirty days. Section 6 puts that notice into a Marriage Notice Book open for inspection “without fee, by any person”, requires a copy affixed in his office, and, where one of you permanently resides elsewhere, requires a copy sent to that district and affixed there too. Section 7 lets any person object within thirty days. Sub-section 3 of section 6 is the dangerous one: it posts your intention in your home district.
There is a partial answer. In Safiya Sultana v. State of U.P., decided on 12 January 2021, the Allahabad High Court held publication under section 6 and objections under section 7 are directory, not mandatory, and mandated that while giving notice under section 5 “it shall be optional for the parties to the intended marriage to make a request in writing to the Marriage Officer to publish or not to publish a notice under Section 6”. Without that written request the Marriage Officer shall not publish or entertain objections, though he may still verify identity, age and consent.
Two limits, and both matter.
Where the district cooperates, the safer sequence is the one the Court set out: ask the DM and SP in your written complaint for logistical support to solemnise and register under police protection. See also registering a marriage under the Special Marriage Act and what to do when the certificate is stuck.
An RTI will not save you tonight. It builds the record a High Court reads. File one to the Public Information Officer, Office of the Superintendent of Police of your district, and a second to the District Magistrate, asking for:
Draft it with the AI RTI Drafter and track the 30 day clock on the Timeline Tracker. If the reply dodges, test it with the PIO Reply Checker and escalate with the First Appeal Builder. A written reply saying no safe house exists is not a defeat. It is evidence. The RTI Playbook sets out the wider method.
No. Lata Singh directs the police throughout the country to ensure a major couple is not harassed or threatened, and Shakti Vahini makes non-compliance a matter for departmental action. If a station refuses to record your information, sub-section 4 of section 173 of the BNSS lets you post the substance to the Superintendent of Police.
Not one that has been verified. The Supreme Court ordered each district Special Cell to run a 24 hour helpline, so the number is a district number. Ask the SP office. For an emergency use 112, for legal aid 15100.
Not for the written complaint to the SP and DM. You do for a High Court petition or to fight a false FIR, and section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act entitles a woman, and separately a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, to free legal services.
The allegation still has to fit a section. Kidnapping from lawful guardianship under section 137 of the BNS covers a child under eighteen or a person of unsound mind. Section 87 requires that the woman was compelled to marry against her will. In Laxmibai Chandaragi the Supreme Court quashed exactly such an FIR. Get a lawyer for a quashing petition under section 528 of the BNSS.
No. If you are being held against your will, that is a habeas corpus petition in the High Court under Article 226, and the District Legal Services Authority can help you file it.
Where one exists, the Court contemplated nominal charges and an initial month, extendable monthly, not exceeding one year in aggregate. Whether your district has the facility at all is a separate question to ask in writing.
In Uttar Pradesh, Safiya Sultana says publication under section 6 is optional if you ask in writing. Elsewhere the 30 day notice and objection procedure stands, and no national ruling has read it down. Registering an already solemnised marriage under Chapter III still carries public notice and thirty days for objections.
Keep the stamped acknowledgement. That silence, set against the one week Additional SP inquiry Shakti Vahini requires, is the core of a writ petition under Article 226 asking the High Court to direct the police to act.