Same-Sex Marriage LIVE updates: SC starts hearing pleas on legalisation
5 min read . Updated: 18 Apr 2023, 11:40 AM IST
Premium- Supreme Court has started hearing arguments on the validation of same-sex marriages in India
Supreme Court begins hearing arguments on the validation of same-sex marriage in India. The five-judge constitution bench of the apex court heard a clutch of petitions as it calls it a "seminal" issue of great importance.
The central government has opposed gay marriage rights and said the matter should be legislated by Parliament and not decided by the courts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government reiterated that deciding on issues touching upon human relations such as marriage is “essentially a legislative function."
India decriminalized homosexuality in 2018 but has yet to extend family rights to the LGBTQ community.
The court proceedings will start shortly and will be closely watched globally that's because if the Supreme Court rules in favour of marriage equality then India will become the world's largest democracy to do so.
According to Pew Research, more than 30 countries across the globe have legalised same-sex marriage so far.
Same-sex marriage pleas to be heard today: Here are key updates on this landmark SC hearing:
- Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi's key arguments in favour of legalisation of same-sex marriage:
- We are getting older. We also want respectability of marriage. Today what is the position? These people- call them queer, gay- if they go to places, people look at them. That is a restriction, infringement of my right under Article 21.
- Concept of marriage has changed over last 100 years. Earlier we had child marriages, temporary marriages, a person could marry any number of times - that also changed. There was a lot of protest to the new avatar of Hindu marriage act.
- Constitution is a living document. The preamble says "equality, fraternity".
- I have a sense of deja vu. Years ago, I opened the case in decriminalising 377 if we have the same rights as heterosexual groups, we have the same right to marry too.
- Rohatgi tells CJI DY Chandrachud, "I want to say that your lordships may broadly read 'spouse' in place of 'man and woman' or 'husband and wife'".
- There is no reason why once our rights are identical, we don't get this. That has been the development in the US and other states. We want a declaration that we have a right to marry, that right will be recognised by the State & will be registered under Special Marriage Act. Once that happens, society will accept us. The stigma will only go once the state recognises it. That will be full and final assimilation," Rohatgi added.
- Mukul Rohatgi tells Court, "We are persons who are of the same sex. We have, acc to us, the same rights under the constitution as a heterosexual group of society. Your Lordships have held that. The only stumbling block to our equal rights was 377. Criminality is now gone. The unnatural part or order of nature is gone from our statute. So therefore our rights are equal".
- Five-Judge constitution bench assembles at Supreme Court.
-Indian lawyer and former Congress leader raised a question on same-sex marriage minutes before the country's apex court is set to hear the pleas. Sibal asked, "Same-sex marriage. Supreme ready to hear. Is society ready to listen? Tough one!
- The Kashmir Files director, Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri has said that same-sex marriage is a human need. He called it, "a need. It's a right".
- Watch the landmark hearing on same-sex marriage here.
- Comedian/ Actor Vir Das backs legalisation of same-sex marriage.
- Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy and Advocate Arundhati Katju, LGBTQ icons and lawyers representing the petitioners in the same-sex marriage tweets, "With the Constitution in our hearts, we go back to our court, for complete equality, full dignity and freedom worthy of our citizenship".
- The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has also moved the Supreme Court against the legalisation of same-sex marriages.
The child rights body argued that children raised by same-sex parents may have a limited exposure to the traditional gender role models.
The petition has referred to studies on adoption by same-sex parents which, it claimed, show that such a child gets affected both socially and psychologically.
- Calling an 'alien concept', Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti has also opposed same-sex marriage.
"The concept of same-sex marriage is alien to our society and it is liable to be rejected in toto," Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti said in the Intervention Application through its general secretary Swami Jeetendranand Sarswatee.
- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has also backed the Central government's stance against same-sex marriage. The RSS said that such unions should only exist between two people from opposite genders.
- Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) has extended its support for same-sex marriage, adoption, and equal rights in India.
The IPS- an umbrella body of psychiatrists in the country with close to 8,000 members- reiterated in its statement that homosexuality is a variant of normal sexuality and not an illness and also said that like every citizen of India, members of the LGBTQIA+ community should be treated equally.
- The petitioners have challenged the constitutionality of pertinent provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, Foreign Marriage Act and Special Marriage Act, and other marriage laws on the ground that they deny same-sex couples the right to marry.
- The Supreme Court is seized of a clutch of at least 15 petitions demanding legal recognition for same-sex marriages in the country.
-The Central government has buttressed its stand that the petitions before the court reflect “urban elitist views for the purpose of social acceptance".
- A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices S K Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, P S Narasimha and Hima Kohli will hear the petitions which were referred to a larger bench for an authoritative pronouncement on 13 March.
- A five-judge Constitution bench of SC to commence hearing on petitions seeking legal validation of same-sex marriages.