Jaipur: A kundli was once the first check before a marriage was fixed.Families matched birth charts, spoke to relatives and made discreet enquiries through friends and community networks to establish whether a prospective bride or groom was a suitable match.In Jaipur, some families are now taking that due diligence a step further — hiring private detectives to investigate the person they may marry.Detective agencies in the city say pre-matrimonial verification has become a growing part of their business. Families want investigators to verify education, employment, income, business interests, family background and relationships before they agree to a marriage.The extent of what such checks can uncover was illustrated by the case of a young man from Jaipur’s Vaishali Nagar who presented himself as a doctor to a family from Rajasthan settled in Bengaluru.The family had doubts about his profile and hired a private detective agency. The investigation found that he was actually a nursing student. The clinic he presented as his own was rented. So was the luxury car, worth nearly Rs 50 lakh, that helped complete the image of a successful medical professional.“In the case of the fake doctor, it took us about 15 days and multiple visits to uncover the extent of the fraud,” said KR Choudhary of the Professional Detectives and Investigators Association of India (TPDIA).The case was an extreme example. More commonly, detectives are asked to establish whether a prospective partner is exaggerating his or her professional standing, income or family circumstances.An executive with Jaipur-based Falcon Detectives said that when he started operating in 2006, there were only a handful of people in the business and very few clients seeking pre-matrimonial checks. Demand has since grown considerably, he said.One of the most sought-after services is what investigators call a “character check”. It starts at around Rs 50,000 and can cost Rs 2 lakh or more when enquiries have to be conducted across multiple cities, the executive said.The checks can range from verifying a degree or job to establishing who actually owns a business or property.In one Jaipur case, a prospective groom claimed to have a BTech degree from a prestigious Delhi college and a senior position at a Hyderabad company. A detective found that his degree was actually from a private college in Kota and that the purported startup amounted to little more than a WhatsApp business card. He was running an insurance business from home.In another case, a woman did not disclose that she had recently separated after a brief marriage. In yet another, a man who claimed never to have married was found to be separated from his wife in Meerut but had not obtained a divorce. Shakti Singh, another private detective, said one of the concerns many parents have is whether the prospective partner they are considering for their son or daughter is in a live-in relationship.Some investigations focus less on the prospective partner and more on the family behind the match.Detectives may be asked to find out whether a family is facing financial difficulties, concealing a serious illness, involved in a bitter dispute or withholding information that could affect the marriage.Relationships have also become part of the scrutiny.The Falcon executive said enquiries about previous relationships and live-in relationships have increased following high-profile relationship-related murder cases, including the 2025 Meghalaya honeymoon murder involving Raja Raghuvanshi and the June 2026 Lohagad Fort case involving Ketan Agarwal.Choudhary said social media has added another layer to the checks. As prospective partners increasingly present carefully constructed identities online, families are seeking independent verification of claims made on matrimonial platforms and social media.
