Same-sex Marriage Recognition: Supreme Court reserves judgment on related batch of petitions

After ten days of hearing a batch of petitions related to same-sex marriage recognition, the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court reserved the judgment. In this case, there were 20 petitions presented before the bench, filed by various transgender persons, same-sex couples, and LGBTQIA+ activists. These petitions were challenging the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the Foreign Marriage Act, 1969, and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 as it does not legalize or recognize non-heterosexual marriages. The Constitution bench hearing the matter constitutes Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice PS Narasimha, and Justice Hima Kohli. 

Senior Advocate (SA) Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, SA Dr. Menaka Guruswamy, SA Anand Grover, SA Mukul Rohatgi, SA Raju Ramachandran, SA Jayna Kothari, SA Geeta Luthra, SA KV Vishwanathan, SA Saurabh Kirpal, Advocates Vrinda Grover, Manu Srinath, Arundhati Katju, Karuna Nundy, and others argued for the petitioners. The filed petitions were opposed by Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Arvind Datar. Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi appeared for the Madhya Pradesh state in opposition and Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta appeared for the Union Government. 

During the course of a 10-day-long proceeding, various issues were addressed in context with the legalization of same-sex marriage or queer marriage. Whether certain rights such as permission to open joint bank accounts, Provident Fund, to name partner as a nominee in life insurance policies, pension, and others. The bench also addressed whether the right to marry for same-sex couples could be declared without interfering with the existing statutes. The argument made by the petitioners was to read the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ in the SMA as ‘spouse’ or ‘person’. This was opposed by the Union government and it highlighted that a single interpretation would disrupt other legislations dealing with maintenance, succession, divorce, adoption, surrogacy, and various others. 

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