Everything in the country has been shut down due to the coronavirus lockdown. However, in Haryana’s Rohtak, a district magistrate court opened up on the night of 13th April to put the legal stamp on a marriage between a local youngster and a Mexican girl.
This was done under the Special Marriage Act as they could not tie the knot due to the lockdown.
According to the Hindustan Times, the couple had first met on a language learning app in 2017 and got engaged the very next year. Speaking to reporters, the groom, Niranjan Kashyap said that his fiance, Dana Joheri Oliveros Cruise and he had first applied to get married under the Special Marriage Act in February 2017.
We met on a language learning app. In 2017, she came to India on my birthday. Then this February 11, Dana and her mother came to India for the wedding. On February 17, we applied for marriage under the Special Marriage Act which has a 30-day notice… The notice was to end on March 18 but by then the lockdown began so we could not get married. We submitted an application to the district collector after which our wedding was conducted.
Dana, the bride, who had returned to Mexico for two years after the engagement in 2018 said:
I came to meet him in 2017. We later got engaged in December 2018 and I returned to Mexico. I spent two years in Mexico. Due to the lockdown, we couldn’t marry. The deputy commissioner helped us.
The advocate who helped them get hitched said that the couple had come to them. And since Dana was from Mexico, they could get married under the Special Marriage Act.
Later, we approached the district magistrate and he sent requests to the Mexican embassy and other offices for a no-objection certificate. After the NOC was obtained, the district magistrate opened the court and performed the wedding at 8 pm on April 13.
At least, someone’s happy in this whole lockdown situation!