Fraudulent Marriages and Divorces by Vivaha Karyalayas 1996 Several marriage shops had mushroomed around the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court at Bandra, Mumbai and were luring young couples into performing ‘quickie’ marriages and were charging an exorbitant fees for it. Such marriages, when came under scrutiny failed to prove their authencity and often ended denying the concerned woman her matrimonial rights. In order to prohibit such practices, we filed a writ petition in 1996, which received wide media publicity. The police raided several such shops, found incriminating evidence against lawyers and court officials running the business of registering fake marriages. Several lawyers were arrested and the marriage shops were sealed. We also pressed for a new legislation, which would give authority to the Registrar of Marriages to scrutinise documents before registering marriages. A new act was enacted in 1998 titled, Maharashtra Regulation of Marriage Bureaus and Registration of Marriages Act, 1998. It became mandatory for the couple to appear before the marriage registrar and sign in the register maintained by him. In the explanation of the new act Majlis’ role in bringing it about is mentioned. 2004 Unfortunately, since the Registrar of Marriages failed in his duty to scrutinise the functioning of marriage bureaus, after a while, gradually these bureaus mushroomed again and were engaging in activities of solemnising marriages and drawing up illegal divorce decrees. Advocates and Notaries were associated with these marriage shops, which provided them with a cloak of legitimacy. In August 2004, the case of one Pooja Kamble hit the news headlines. Pooja was assaulted and taken by her husband to one of these marriage shops at Bandra (East) and was forced to sign documents allegedly for divorce which deprived her custody of her children and her right of maintenance. Following this incident, we filed another Writ Petition in the Bombay High Court. As a result of this petition, the marriage shops have closed down. The Registrar of Marriages was constrained to take action against several marriage shops, which have been carrying such illegal and fraudulent activities. The Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa conducted an enquiry and four lawyers were debarred.