Delhi HC gives govts 'last chance' to respond on 3 pleas to recognise same-sex union

NEW DELHI: Delhi High Court has granted a last opportunity to the central government and Delhi government to respond to three separate pleas seeking that

same-sex marriage

be recognised by law.

A bench of Justices Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Sanjeev Narula recently gave the authorities time till February 25 to clear their stand in response to the notice issued earlier and said, "one last opportunity be given to the respondents to file counter affidavits within three weeks".

In the first petition, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra and three others have contended that

marriages

between same sex couples are not possible despite the Supreme Court decriminalising consensual homosexual acts and sought a declaration to recognise same sex marriages under the Hindu

Marriage

Act and the Special Marriage Act.

The other petitions have been filed by two women seeking to get married under the Special Marriage Act and challenging provisions of the statute to the extent it does not provide for same sex marriages, and by two men who got married in the United States of America, but were denied registration of their marriage under the Foreign Marriage Act, respectively.

The high court had earlier sought responses of the central and state governments on the pleas filed by Mitra and the two women. It also asked the Centre and the Consulate General of India in New York to respond to the petition by the two men.

The petition filed by equal rights activists Mitra, Gopi Shankar M, Giti Thadani and G Oorvasi contended that homosexuality had been decriminalised by the apex court, but same sex marriages were still not being allowed under the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act.

"This is despite the fact that the said Act does not distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual marriage, if one were to go by how it has been worded. It very clearly states that marriage can indeed be solemnised between 'any two Hindus'....In this view of the matter, it can be stated that it is against the constitutional mandate of non-arbitrariness if the said right is not extended to homosexual apart from heterosexual couples," the petition stated.

The denial of this right to homosexual couples is also against the mandate of various international conventions that India is signatory to, the plea argued.