12. Search for and certified copy of entry in marriage registers

The Registrar General and every Registrar shall cause indices to be made of the registers of marriages kept by them, and any person upon application to the Registrar General or a Registrar, and upon payment of the prescribed fee, shall be entitled to have a search made in the marriage register and the index thereof, and to have a certified copy of any entry in such marriage register.

Every certified copy of any entry in a register of marriages, if such copy purports to be signed by any person entrusted under this Act, shall be received for all purposes and in all courts as evidence of the marriage to which it relates without further proof of such register or of any entry therein or of such signature, but not of the validity of such marriage; but a court may, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, presume any marriage so registered to have been valid and the onus of proving that there was no such valid marriage shall be on the person alleging it.