The Supreme Court will hear a slew of pleas in favour legalizing gay marriages in the country on Monday, according to the cause list posted on the top court’s website.
A bench comprising of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala is scheduled to hear requests seeking legal validation of same-sex marriages. On January 6, the apex court had transferred and clubbed to itself, all such pleas pending in different high courts, including the Delhi High Court.
In its January 6 order, it had asked Advocate Arundhati Katju—representing the petitioners—and the Central government’s counsel, to prepare together a common compilation of the written submissions, documents and precedents on which reliance would be placed during the course of the hearing.
The petitioners’ counsel had requested the Supreme Court bench to transfer all such cases itself for an authoritative pronouncement on the issue and that the Centre can file its response in the top court.
Earlier, on January 3, the Supreme 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.
The Supreme Court had in December last year sought the Centre’s response to two pleas seeking a transfer of the petitions pending in the Delhi High Court for directions to recognize same-sex marriages to itself.
Earlier on November 25 last year, the top 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 decriminalised consensual gay sex in its 2018 landmark judgement, issued a notice to the Centre in November last year, besides seeking Attorney General R Venkataramani’s assistance in dealing with the pleas.
The petitions have sought a direction that the right to marry a person of one’s choice be extended to LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people as part of their fundamental right. One petition seeks a reinterpretation of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 in a gender-neutral manner where a person is not discriminated against due to his sexual orientation.
On September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, issued a landmark judgement wherein it decriminalized consensual gay sex among adults. It struck down a part of the British-era penal law under Article 377, on grounds that it violated the constitutional right to equality and dignity.
In its pathbreaking judgement, the apex court ruled that
section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that criminalised consensual gay sex was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary”. The top court had said that the 158-year-old law had become an “odious weapon” to harass the LGBTQ community by subjecting its members to discrimination and unequal treatment.