The Supreme Court has started proceedings in the hearing of petitions seeking the legal recognition of same-sex marriages in India.
The hearing comes two days after the Centre opposed the pleas saying the petitions represent "urban elite" views. Earlier, the Centre said in court that same-sex marriages would "create havoc" in society.
A five-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices SK Kaul, Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha is hearing the petitions after Chandrachud called it a matter of "seminal importance".
The Supreme Court is live-streaming the proceedings on YouTube.
While arguing, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi said today, "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' ".
A number of petitions have been filed in recent years in various high courts for the legal recognition of same-sex marriages. They seek recognition under Hindu Marriage Act (HMA), Special Marriage Act (SMA), and Foreign Marriage Act (FMA). Gender rights campaigners believe recognising same-sex marriages is the next logical step after the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
Responding to Rohatgi's aruguements on Hindu Marriage Act, CHI Chandrachud said, "It may not be necessary for the court to get into personal laws at all. Perhaps if you consider the HMA, then what about Parsis, Muslims, Buddhists? Confine yourself to a limited canvas and then allow society and Parliament to evolve, because they are also following societal change."
Reiterating its opposition to the move, the Centre has said that legalising same-sex marriage would lead to a virtual rewriting of an entire branch of law and argued that the Centre must refrain from passing such "omnibus orders".
"The competent legislature will have to take into account broader views and voice of all rural, semi-rural and urban population, views of religious denominations keeping in mind personal laws as well as and customs governing the field of marriage together with its inevitable cascading effects on several other statutes," the Centre said.
The submissions were made in an affidavit filed in response to a batch of pleas seeking legal validation of same-sex marriage.
Though homosexuality was decriminalised in 2018, same-sex marriages continue to be unacknowledged and unrecognised by Indian laws. Both the Government of India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have opposed any recognition of same-sex marriages.
One of the earliest petitions was filed in 2020 in the Delhi High Court by Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. He argues that the HMA does not distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual marriages in its wording. Among other dozens of petitioners are also Dr Kavita Arora and Ankita Khanna, a same-sex couple who've been waiting for years to tie the knot.
