The Centre on Sunday filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, opposing the legal recognition of same-sex marriages in India.
Citing the concept of Indian families, the Centre told the apex court that same-sex relationships & heterosexual relationships are a “distinctive” class of relationships and it cannot be treated identically.
The Centre in it’s affidavit said, “Notion of marriage… necessarily and inevitably presupposes union bet 2 persons of opposite sex. This definition is socially, culturally & legally ingrained into the very idea and the concept of marriage & ought not to be disturbed or diluted by judicial interpretation,” according to Live Law.
According to the Centre, the legal recognition of the institution of marriage, “was limited to a relationship between a man and a women, represented as a husban and wife.”
The Centre said that the legal recognition of same-sex marriages results in the violation of existing and codified law provisions including, ‘conditions of marriage,’ ‘ceremonial and ritual requirements,’ ‘degrees of prohibited relationship.’
Same-sex marriages were decriminalized and were now comparable with the the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife, and children.
This comes as the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of pleas seeking legal validation for same-sex marriage on March 13 (Monday).
A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala will hear them.
The apex court had, on January 6, clubbed and transferred to itself all such petitions pending before different high courts, including the Delhi High Court.
On January 3, the apex court had said it would hear on January 6 the pleas seeking a transfer of petitions for recognition of same-sex marriages pending before the high courts to the top court.
On December 14 last year, the apex court had sought the Centre’s response to two pleas seeking a transfer of the petitions pending in the Delhi High Court for directions to recognise same-sex marriages to itself.
Prior to that, on November 25 last year, the apex court had sought the Centre’s response to separate pleas moved by two gay couples seeking enforcement of their right to marry and a direction to the authorities concerned to register their marriages under the Special Marriage Act.
A bench headed by CJI Chandrachud, who was also part of the Constitution bench that in 2018 decriminalised consensual gay sex, issued a notice to the Centre in November last year, besides seeking Attorney General R Venkataramani’s assistance in dealing with the pleas.
The top court’s five-judge Constitution bench, in a path-breaking unanimous verdict delivered on September 6, 2018, held that consensual sex among adult homosexuals or heterosexuals in a private space is not a crime.
It also removed a part of the British-era penal law that criminalised it on the ground that it violated the constitutional right to equality and dignity.
The Supreme Court had observed that members of the LGBT community possessed the same fundamental rights as others. This issue of sexual orientation and its relationship to the fundamental rights of the individuals has been at the heart of the debate.
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