Same-sex marriages can have stability: Supreme Court
New Delhi (IANS) | The Supreme Court on Thursday said that looking at India constitutionally and socially, we have already reached that intermediate stage where homosexuality has been decriminalized, one can think that same sex Let people be stable in a stable relationship like a stable marriage. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said that in the last 69 years, the law has really evolved.
When you decriminalize homosexuality, you also realize that it is not a one-time relationship, it is a stable relationship as well, the Chief Justice said. By decriminalizing homosexuality, we have not only recognized relationships between consenting adults of the same sex, we have indirectly recognized them as well. Hence, the fact that people who are of the same sex will be in stable relationships.,
A division bench of Justices SK Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha noted that the purpose of the law in 1954 (Special Marriage Act) was to include persons who would be governed by a matrimonial relationship. Apart from their personal laws. The bench told senior advocate A M Singhvi, representing some of the petitioners seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriages, that the law is certainly comprehensive, according to you stable same-sex relationships can also be taken into account. Is.
Singhvi said, I put it very clearly. When you made the law, in the debate in the Parliament, the idea of homosexuals could not be in your mind. You would not have believed them. The CJI replied, it doesn’t matter.
Your theory is that when the law was enacted in 1954, the purpose of the law was to provide a form of marriage for those who are not going back to their personal laws, the bench said.
The Chief Justice said that from the point of view of institutional competence, we have to ask ourselves whether we are doing something which is fundamentally contrary to the scheme of the law, or rewriting the entirety of the law, the court will make the policy choice , which is for the legislature to make.
Justice Chandrachud said, until we touch that line dividing policy from judicial process, you are in its ambit.
The Chief Justice said that looking at India constitutionally as well as socially, we have already reached an intermediate stage. In the intermediate stage it is assumed that homosexuality is decriminalised, the act of decriminalizing homosexuality contemplates that the relationship between such people would be like a stable marriage. He said, the moment we said that it is no longer an offense under section 377, so we essentially take the view that you can have a stable marriage-like relationship between two persons.
The bench said that it is not only a physical relationship but something more stable emotional relationship, which is now a phenomenon of constitutional interpretation. ,
The bench continued hearing the matter.
–IANS
