Is it illegal to Stay with Your GirlFriend in a Hotel in India ?Know Your Rights

When you have a girlfriend / boyfriend , finding some exclusive space to be with her  is one of the biggest challenges in India. Different places of our nation have a different attitude to such issues ranging from unbearably conservative to extremely open. People tend to moral police, mobs like to beat up and often the underlying philosophy is that ‘if I can’t have it, you shouldn’t have it either’. But what do the laws say about this ? Does it protect the rights of the couple who wants to spend some time on their own in a hotel room ? Is it against the rules ?

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What does the rule say about it ?

There is no rule in India that says unmarried couple spending time together in a hotel is immoral. But police often seem to act on the basis of a non existent law and penalise such couples. The law clearly says that anyone over the age of 18 can legally consent for any kind of physical relationship.

Why do the hotels then deny rooms to unmarried couple? 

The plain fact is that they are scared of police. Infact refusing to let out a room to someone because of their marital status is actually a violation of fundamental rights. Supreme Court has repeatedly said that it is legal for unmarried couples to stay together. High end hotels that take a higher price for rooms often let you take a room even if you are with your partner, but there are very few who could afford that.

Hotel Association of India, the umbrella organisation which oversees over 280 hotels and resorts across the country says there are no such stipulations regarding not providing an unmarried couple with a room.

Does booking it via a travel portal solve the issue ?
A lot of people say it does solve problem to an extend. But they do make it clear that the hotels reserves the right of admission. So you can have it all done perfectly through your travel portal but the hotel receptionist can still push you off. Although such stigmas existed long time before, the Apex court had sought to de-stigmatise relations outside matrimony by ruling “live in or marriage like relationship is neither a crime nor a sin though socially unacceptable in this country.”

So the rules are all stacked in you favour, if you wanna spend some time with your bf/gf, but the restraints of the taboo are set deep in to the minds of the people that they may not care about the law. Better safe than sorry, but yes law is on your side, at least theoretically.