Two things nobody in this trade publishes willingly: what the cheapest lawful route really costs, rupee by rupee, including the part that is not ours — and what happens when something goes wrong and there is no money for a lawyer.
Quick answer: The money first. The state’s share of getting married and registered is small — ₹100 to the Marriage Clerk under the Hindu Marriage Act, ₹200 as the 2014 Order’s requisite fee, ₹15 to the cashier of the District on the civil route, plus ₹100–₹200 for notarised affidavits. Anybody quoting “the government fee” in thousands is quoting their own charge, and no fee shortens a statutory period. Ours: ceremony ₹5,100, ceremony with registration ₹7,100 — and if you want to run the government part yourselves, we will tell you how, free. The safety net second. Free legal aid is not charity but a statutory entitlement: section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 entitles, among others, “a women or a child” — a clause with no income test in it — along with SC/ST members, persons with disability, industrial workmen, persons in custody, and those below a limit the State may prescribe higher than the Act’s own figure. And a Lok Adalat award is “deemed to be a decree of a civil court”, with the court fee refunded on settlement — but it is “final and binding … and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award”, so never sign terms you have not understood. We do not provide witnesses.
Ask anybody who takes calls in this business which part of Delhi asks about money first, and the answer is the west — Vikaspuri, Mohan Garden, Bindapur, Nawada, the Uttam Nagar side. It is not stinginess. It is a belt of one-income households, of builder floors bought with a loan, of families putting a child through a course abroad, and of people who have been quoted three wildly different prices for the same morning's work by three different people.
So this page does two things that no marriage service in Delhi does willingly.
First, it prices the cheapest lawful way to get married and registered, line by line — including the parts that are not ours, so you can see exactly what the government takes and what a service charge is. Somebody who reads this and decides to do the whole thing themselves has our blessing; the couples who come back to us are the ones who worked out that a morning of their own time is worth more than the difference.
Second, and more useful, it sets out what happens when something goes wrong and there is no money for a lawyer. Free legal aid in India is not a favour anybody does you. It is a statutory entitlement, the statute names the categories, and for a very large share of the people reading this — every woman, for a start — it applies regardless of income. Almost nobody knows that, and nobody in this trade has any incentive to tell you.
The general law of marriage and registration sits on our process, documents and registration pages. What follows is the money and the safety net.
Take the ordinary case: a couple in Vikaspuri, both Hindu, both adults, no previous marriage, who want to be married and to have a government record of it. Here is every rupee that route involves, separated into what the state takes and what anybody else charges.
| Item | Realistic amount | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Hindu Marriage Act registration fee | ₹100 | The government, paid to the Marriage Clerk. A receipt should follow. |
| The 2014 Order's requisite fee | ₹200 | The government. |
| Special Marriage Act solemnisation fee, if you take that route instead | ₹15 | The government, paid to the cashier of the District. |
| Affidavits, notarised | ₹100–₹200 in ordinary cases | Stamp paper and the notary. Not a court fee, and there is no court involved. |
| Photocopies, photographs, printouts | A few dozen rupees | The shop. |
| Travel, and the working morning | Your time | Nobody. This is the real cost people forget, and it is why they eventually pay somebody. |
| A ceremony, if you want one | ₹5,100 with us | Us. The Vedic rites and the institution's certificate. |
| Us handling the registration as well | ₹7,100 in total | Us. Ceremony plus the government side handled. |
| A lawyer | Nothing, ordinarily | Nobody. An ordinary registration is an office process; a lawyer becomes relevant when there is a dispute, a decree or a court matter, which is a different page of your life. |
Two conclusions follow, and we would rather say them than have you discover them.
The government's share of this is small. ₹100, ₹200 and ₹15 are the published figures, and anybody quoting "the government fee" in thousands is describing their own charge. Ask for the receipt for every rupee that is supposed to reach a counter.
There is no such thing as a rush charge on a statutory period. The thirty days a Special Marriage Act notice must run is in the statute; no fee moves it, and an offer to move it is the clearest sign in this trade that you are talking to the wrong person.
Having priced the floor, here is the honest other half. Four economies look sensible on the day and are expensive later.
One — taking the ceremony alone when you will need proof. ₹5,100 makes you married under section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act; it does not put anything on a government record. If a bank, an employer, an insurer, a passport office or a hospital will ever need to be shown, the registration is the part that answers them. The two-thousand-rupee difference is not what you are deciding; you are deciding whether the marriage is provable in 2038.
Two — letting somebody supply your witnesses. Cheap, common, and the exposure is entirely the signer's and yours. A person certifying a ceremony they did not attend is making a statement about something they did not see, and nobody who sold the arrangement is standing next to you when it is questioned. We do not provide witnesses at any price.
Three — an offer that neither of you need attend. Whatever is produced by such an arrangement, you will be holding it. Our verification page sets out what happens when a document like that meets an office that checks — and the honest alternative, registering properly, is usually cheaper than the thing being sold.
Four — not reading the certificate the day it arrives. Free, takes two minutes, and it is the cheapest insurance available: both names, both fathers' names, the date of marriage, the date of registration, the office, the entry number. A mistake caught on day one is clerical; the same mistake in 2035 is an application, a wait and an explanation.
Vikaspuri, Mohan Garden and Bindapur are largely builder floors, sold on registered sale deeds, with a utility connection that frequently still names a previous owner or the builder. That is the local documentary problem and it has a short answer.
Your Aadhaar, carrying this address, is the centre of the file. A sale deed proves who owns the floor; an office asking for residence proof is asking a different question, and it is answered by records in your own name.
A bill in the previous owner's name is background, not proof. Bring it if you have nothing else, but bring your own bank record and, if you have one, your passport ahead of it.
Write the address exactly as the Aadhaar writes it — block, plot, floor, pin code, character for character, on every form. In a belt where four floors share one plot number, that single discipline prevents most of the files that get sent back.
The full method, including the free electoral-roll repair and the route for an Aadhaar that still shows an old address, is set out on our Janakpuri and Laxmi Nagar pages, and it transfers here without change.
This is the section we would most like people in this belt to read, and it is the one that earns us nothing.
The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 does not ask anybody to be deserving. Section 12 opens with the words "Every person who has to file or defend a case shall be entitled to legal services under this Act if that person, is—" and then lists the categories. Read them, because most people assume the list is narrower than it is:
| Clause | Who is entitled, in the statute's own words |
|---|---|
| (a) | "a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe" |
| (b) | "a victim of trafficking in human beings or beggar as referred to in Article 23 of the Constitution" |
| (c) | "a women or a child" — the clause exactly as the Act words it |
| (d) | a person with disability, as defined in the disabilities legislation the section refers to |
| (e) | a person "under circumstances of undeserved want" — the section names being a victim of mass disaster, ethnic violence, caste atrocity, flood, drought, earthquake or industrial disaster |
| (f) | "an industrial workman" |
| (g) | a person "in custody", including in a protective home, a juvenile home, or a psychiatric hospital or nursing home, as the section defines them |
| (h) | a person in receipt of an annual income below the figure the section sets — with the important words "or such other higher amount as may be prescribed" by the State Government (and by the Central Government for the Supreme Court) |
Two things about that table matter more than the rest of this page.
Clause (c) has no income test in it. A woman is entitled to legal services under this Act because clause (c) says so. Not a poor woman, not a woman below a threshold — the clause names a woman and a child and stops. Anybody who tells a woman in Delhi that she must first prove she cannot afford a lawyer has not read section 12.
The income figures in clause (h) are floors, not ceilings. The section's own numbers are old and the clause expressly contemplates a higher amount as may be prescribed by the State Government, which is what actually applies in Delhi. We therefore print no current figure here on purpose — ask the legal services authority what the prescribed limit is today, because a number copied from a website is exactly how somebody eligible talks themselves out of applying.
One further provision worth knowing: the Act also allows the authority to satisfy itself that the applicant has a case worth taking. Legal aid is real representation, not a rubber stamp — which is the reason it is worth having.
The statute is clear and the practical route is simpler than people fear. We give this away on the telephone and charge nothing for it.
The authorities are arranged in a ladder. There is a State-level authority for Delhi, and a District Legal Services Authority at each district court complex — in this part of the city that means the west and south-west complexes rather than a central office. There are also front offices and legal-aid clinics attached to them.
You apply. An application, in your own name, with identity proof, and whatever documents show which clause of section 12 you fall under. A woman applying under clause (c) is establishing that she is a woman, which is not a difficult evidential problem.
What you get is a lawyer — a panel advocate assigned to the matter, whose fee the authority pays, not you. You are a client, not a supplicant, and you may ask about the progress of your own case like anybody else.
What it costs you: nothing. Which is why the single most useful sentence on this page is this one: if somebody is asking a woman in this city for money to file a matrimonial case, she should ask the legal services authority first, before she borrows.
And our own boundary, said plainly: we are not advocates, we do not appear in any court, and we do not arrange legal aid. We can tell you it exists, which clause probably applies to you, and where to ask — and we do not take a rupee for doing so, because a referral fee in this area would be indefensible.
The second half of the same Act is the part that settles matters without a trial, and two of its provisions are worth knowing before anybody signs anything.
How a matter reaches a Lok Adalat — section 20. A court may refer a case where "the parties thereof agree"; or where "one of the parties thereof makes an application to the Court" and the court is satisfied there is a chance of settlement; or where the court is satisfied that "the matter is an appropriate one to be taken cognizance of by the Lok Adalat" — with a proviso that no case shall be referred on the last two grounds "except after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the parties." A matter that is not yet in court can also be taken up, on an application by one of the parties, again after the other side has had a reasonable opportunity of being heard.
What an award is — section 21. "Every award of the Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil court" or an order of the appropriate court, and where a settlement has been reached in a case referred by a court, "the court-fee paid in such case shall be refunded in the manner provided under the Court Fees Act, 1870." Then sub-section (2), which is the sentence to read twice: "Every award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute, and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award."
And what happens if nobody settles — section 20(5). The record goes back to the court it came from, "for disposal in accordance with law." So a failed Lok Adalat is not a loss; the case simply resumes.
Put those together and the picture is unusual. The upside is enormous: a settlement that would otherwise take years becomes an order with the force of a decree, in a morning, with the court fee refunded. The downside is the same sentence read from the other end: it is final, and there is no appeal. Which produces the only advice that matters here — do not sign terms in a Lok Adalat you have not understood, do not sign because a room is waiting and everybody wants to go home, and if you are entitled to a lawyer under section 12, have that lawyer with you when you do sign.
What we will not do is tell you what terms to accept. That is an advocate's work on your facts, and this page exists to make sure you know the door is there, not to walk through it for you.
Four honest limits, because a page that oversells this does harm.
A Lok Adalat settles; it does not adjudicate a fight. Its whole machinery assumes a settlement is possible. Where one side will not agree to anything, section 20(5) sends the file back to the court and the ordinary process continues.
It is not a shortcut through a statutory period. Nothing in this Act shortens the thirty-day notice under the Special Marriage Act, and nothing in it accelerates a registration that is simply inside its own timeline. Where an application is genuinely sitting untouched, the route is Delhi's time-bound service law and the courteous escalation set out on our Lajpat Nagar page.
Whether a marriage itself can be brought to an end by such an award is not a question we will answer. Settlement terms about maintenance, return of belongings, custody arrangements and costs are the ordinary business of these forums; the dissolution of a marriage is governed by its own statute and its own court, and how the two interact is precisely the sort of question to put to an advocate — including a legal-aid advocate — rather than to a marriage service or a website.
Legal aid is representation, not a guarantee of a result. A panel advocate will act for you properly; no advocate, paid or unpaid, can promise an outcome, and anybody who does is telling you something about themselves rather than about your case.
Since price is the first question in this belt, here is the comparison as we would give it to a relative, with our own interest stated rather than hidden.
| What you want | The route | What it really costs, and the catch |
|---|---|---|
| To be married, today, with a ceremony the family will accept | Arya Samaj ceremony | ₹5,100. Valid from that morning under section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The catch: no government record exists, so proving it later means producing the institution's paper and explaining it. |
| To be married and able to prove it | Ceremony plus registration | ₹7,100. What most couples here should take, for the reasons in the section above. |
| To do the government part yourselves | Register on your own | ₹300–₹500 in fees and notary charges, plus your time and trips. Entirely doable, and we will tell you so on the phone rather than talk you out of it. |
| A civil marriage with no religious ceremony at all | Special Marriage Act | ₹15,000 with us, or the statutory fees alone if you run it yourself. The catch is the public notice and the thirty days it must run, which is a decision and not a delay. |
| An old marriage put on record | Late registration | ₹6,000 with us, plus the Order's own ₹500 condonation or ₹1,000 penalty. Nothing compounds, so waiting another year saves nothing. |
| Everything taken off your hands | Premium | ₹56,000. Honest answer: most families in this belt should not buy this, and we will say so. |
The reason to publish the do-it-yourself line at all is that it is the only way to make the rest of the table meaningful. A price you cannot compare with anything is not information.
Short section, and we hope nobody needs it. Two things are worth saying about helplines that the posters do not.
They are for situations, not for paperwork. A helpline is the right call where somebody is being threatened, confined, or pressured into or out of a marriage. It is not the route for a delayed file, an office that wants an extra document, or a dispute about a fee — those have their own routes, set out on our Mayur Vihar Phase 2 and Lajpat Nagar pages.
The legal services authority is the quieter, more useful number in most cases. Where the problem is that you need a lawyer and cannot pay for one, the authority is the place to start, and clause (c) of section 12 means a woman does not have to justify the request on income.
What we do when such a call reaches us, said so that nobody is surprised: we listen, we say plainly what we can and cannot do, and where somebody is in danger or is being coerced we tell them so and point them at the people whose job it is. We will not take a booking from a couple where one of them is plainly not consenting freely — free consent is a condition of a valid marriage under section 5(ii) of the Act, and a ceremony performed in its absence is not a service, it is a problem we would be creating.
As on every page of this site, no office allocations are printed. Files are allotted on the exact address entered, Delhi's districts and sub-divisions were redrawn during 2026, and a confident office name in print manufactures a wasted trip. A certificate issued before the reorganisation remains valid — renaming a district does nothing to a document already issued.
The boundary here is the one west Delhi gets wrong. Vikaspuri, Mohan Garden, Bindapur, Nawada, Uttam Nagar, Janakpuri, Tilak Nagar, Hari Nagar and Najafgarh are Delhi. Bahadurgarh is Haryana, and so are Gurugram and Palam Vihar on the other side. The Najafgarh–Bahadurgarh road feels continuous and the administrative line does not care. If either of you actually resides across it, that changes which residence document does the work and, on the civil route, where the notice is given — a month, if it is discovered late.
For an old entry nobody can locate, the written-request-then-Right-to-Information sequence is on the Mayur Vihar Phase 2 page linked above. For an application that is simply sitting, the Lajpat Nagar page has Delhi's own service-time law and the polite way to invoke it.
We work across the whole of west Delhi. The table exists because the documentary problem changes as you move, and knowing yours saves the guesswork.
| Area | What the file usually turns on |
|---|---|
| Vikaspuri blocks, Mohan Garden, Bindapur | Builder floors on registered sale deeds with the connection in a previous owner's name. Aadhaar first, bank record second, bill third. |
| Uttam Nagar, Nawada, Dwarka Mor | Recent arrivals and informal tenancies; our Uttam Nagar page also covers the verification questions that arise before a quickly-arranged marriage. |
| Janakpuri, Tilak Nagar, Subhash Nagar | Original DDA allotments and the block-and-pocket address problem — our Janakpuri page. |
| Hari Nagar, Fateh Nagar | Long-settled households where succession and nominations are the live question — our Hari Nagar page. |
| Palam, Sagarpur, Dabri | Mixed tenancy and urban-village addresses — our Palam page, which also deals with thumb impression and disability rights. |
| Dwarka sectors | Society paperwork — share certificate, membership, nomination — on our Sector 12 and Sector 6 pages. |
| Rani Bagh, Paschim Vihar side | Name-change questions for women running a business in their maiden name — our Rani Bagh page. |
| Bahadurgarh, Gurugram, Palam Vihar | Haryana. Say it on the first call. |
Two adults who know you, who are present, and who sign in front of the officer with their own original identity and address proof. That is the whole requirement, and in a colony like this one it is usually easy — neighbours, cousins, colleagues from the same market.
The offer to refuse is the one that comes up in price-sensitive belts more than anywhere else: somebody who will "arrange" the two witnesses for a few hundred rupees. It sounds like a convenience and it is not. A paid stranger is signing a statement about a ceremony they did not watch; if the marriage is ever questioned, the two signatures nobody can explain are the first thing anybody notices; and the person who sold the arrangement is not the person who will be asked about it. We do not provide witnesses, at any price, and we would rather lose the booking than arrange that.
Three cheap habits that prevent the wasted morning: tell each witness in plain words what to bring; confirm both by a call two days before, not by a message the night before; and keep a third name in reserve who knows they are the reserve. What a witness is actually attesting, and where the exposure lies, is on our witnesses page.
One — believing "the government fee" is in thousands. It is ₹100, ₹200 and, on the civil route, ₹15. Everything above that is somebody's charge, and every rupee meant for a counter should come back as a receipt.
Two — paying for speed on a statutory period. The thirty-day notice is in the Act. No fee shortens it, and the offer is the clearest warning sign in this trade.
Three — taking the ceremony alone when proof will be needed. You are not saving two thousand rupees; you are deciding whether the marriage is provable in a bank or a passport office years from now.
Four — letting anybody supply witnesses. The signature is theirs and the document is yours. Both of those facts survive long after the money is spent.
Five — a woman borrowing money for a lawyer before asking the legal services authority. Clause (c) of section 12 entitles a woman to legal services under the Act, and there is no income test in that clause.
Six — taking an income figure off a website and deciding you are not eligible. The section's own numbers are floors, and it expressly allows a higher amount as may be prescribed by the State. Ask the authority what applies today.
Seven — signing terms in a Lok Adalat because the room is waiting. Under section 21(2) the award is final and binding and no appeal lies against it. Understand what you are signing, and have your advocate there if you are entitled to one.
Eight — assuming a failed settlement is a loss. Under section 20(5) the record goes back to the court "for disposal in accordance with law". Nothing is forfeited by not agreeing.
Nine — using a helpline for a paperwork problem. Helplines are for coercion and danger. A delayed file has its own routes, and they work better.
Ten — writing the address on the form differently from the Aadhaar. In a belt where four floors share one plot number, this is still the single commonest reason a file comes back.
The same list everywhere in Delhi, with the things we do not charge for marked as such.
| Item | Amount | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Vedic ceremony only | ₹5,100 | The rites at the mandir and the institution's certificate. Married from that day under section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act, with nothing on a government record. |
| Ceremony with registration handled | ₹7,100 | The wedding and the government side together. The version that answers a bank, an insurer or a passport office later. |
| An earlier marriage put on record | ₹6,000 | Any past year. ₹12,000 where the proof has to be rebuilt from photographs, cards and whatever the family kept. |
| Special Marriage Act, whole route | ₹15,000 | Notice, the period it must run, the declaration before three witnesses, the certificate. |
| Premium, fully managed | ₹56,000 | Everything handled end to end. Most families in this belt do not need it and will be told so. |
| Duplicate or a certified extract | ₹2,500 | From the office holding the entry, for a party to the marriage. |
| Apostille and attestation handling | ₹4,500 | The chain assembled and followed through. The state's own share: nothing for normal attestation, ₹50 per document or page for an apostille. |
| Statutory fees | ₹100 · ₹200 · ₹15 | To the Marriage Clerk, as the 2014 Order's requisite fee, and to the cashier of the District respectively. Receipts for all three. |
| Telling you how to do it yourself | Free | Including the fees above and the order of the steps. If you want to run it yourself, you will get a straight answer, not a sales pitch. |
| Telling you about free legal aid | Free, and no referral fee taken | Which clause of section 12 probably applies to you, and where to ask. We are not advocates and we arrange nothing. |
| Witnesses | Not provided, at any price | Two adults who know you and will attend. |
On an older marriage the Order's charges apply rather than ours: ₹500 as condonation inside the second sixty days, then a ₹1,000 penalty which the ADM or DM may remit. It does not compound, so a wedding from 2011 is billed exactly as last month's would be. Everything is on our fee page, and late registration has its own.
Sourced. The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 — section 12, that "every person who has to file or defend a case shall be entitled to legal services under this Act" in the listed cases, including clause (a) a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, (b) a victim of trafficking in human beings or beggar as referred to in Article 23, (c) "a women or a child", (d) a person with disability as the section defines it, (e) a person in "circumstances of undeserved want" including the disasters and atrocities the clause names, (f) "an industrial workman", (g) a person "in custody" in the institutions the clause lists, and (h) the income clause, expressly subject to "such other higher amount as may be prescribed". Section 20 — reference to a Lok Adalat where "the parties thereof agree", where "one of the parties thereof makes an application" and settlement appears possible, or where the court is satisfied "the matter is an appropriate one", with the proviso requiring "a reasonable opportunity of being heard", the pre-litigation route on one party's application, and 20(5), the record returning to the court "for disposal in accordance with law" where no award is made. Section 21 — an award "shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil court", the court fee "shall be refunded in the manner provided under the Court Fees Act, 1870" on a settlement in a referred case, and 21(2), that an award "shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute, and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award."
For the marriage side: sections 5(ii) and 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act; the Special Marriage Act on notice, publication and the thirty-day objection period; the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 for the ₹200 requisite fee, the sixty-day window, the ₹500 condonation, the ₹1,000 penalty and Order 8; the Delhi Revenue Department for the ₹100 fee payable to the Marriage Clerk and the ₹15 payable to the cashier of the District; and the Ministry of External Affairs on attestation being free and an apostille costing ₹50 per document or page.
Left to an advocate, deliberately. The current prescribed income limit for legal aid in Delhi — the clause allows a higher prescribed amount and we will not print a figure that may be out of date and talk an eligible person out of applying; ask the authority. Whether a marriage can be dissolved through a Lok Adalat award — settlement terms on maintenance, belongings, custody and costs are ordinary business there, but dissolution has its own statute and its own court, and how the two interact is an advocate's question. What terms you should accept in any settlement — never ours to advise. Which office serves a given Vikaspuri address — allotted on the exact address after a reorganisation that moved boundaries. And the do-it-yourself cost estimates in the first section are our own experience of ordinary cases, not a tariff.
One — decide whether you need the record or only the ceremony. Say which, and why, and you will get a straight recommendation rather than an upsell. If the honest answer is that you can do the government part yourselves, you will hear that.
Two — read your address off the Aadhaar card. Block, plot, floor, pin code. If it shows an older address, say so at the start.
Three — if something has already gone wrong, say so first. A family objecting, a previous marriage, a document somebody has taken, a person being pressured. We will tell you plainly what is ours to handle and what belongs to an advocate or a legal services authority — and there is no fee for that conversation, ever.
Call +91 8376863962.
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