This Lesbian Couple Found Love In A Punjab Prison, The Canada Honeymoon Is The Hard Part

Supreme Court lawyer Anand Grover said the couple would probably have to approach the courts to gain legal recognition.

“Subject to seeing their (Manjeet and Seerat Sandhu) documents of “marriage”  in order to get legal recognition of their marriage they will have to initiate litigation,” said Grover.

Meanwhile, a 2012 Punjab state law requiring that all couples mandatorily register their weddings in with the state has created an added complication. Until this law was passed, couples of a particular religion could obtain marriage certificates from their particular religious authority. 

Now, Manjit and Seerat’s wedding has the local authorities in a fix.

“We are yet to ascertain as to under which act we can register their marriage,” said Jasbir Singh, the Additional deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar. “While there is no separate provision to register such marriages, we have sough a legal opinion to register their marriage under Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act.”

Meanwhile at the Passport Office at Chandigarh, Regional Officer Sibash Kabiraj said his office was yet to confront such a case. 

“We haven’t faced any such case as of now. Also, there is no specific directions issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to deal with such cases. Only when we receive such case, we will seek an opinion from it,” said Kabiraj.

HuffPost India has written to  Harmanbir Singh Gill, Regional Passport Officer at Jalandhar and will update the report if receive a reply. 

Manjit and Seerat continue to have their hearts set on visiting Canada.