Gender Neutral Reading, Marital Age Inclusivity Discussed: Day 3 Of SC Hearing

Day 3 of the supreme court hearing saw arguments made by Advocates Singhvi, Ramachandran, and Vishwanathan for the constitutional validity of petitions filed for same-sex marriage.

The third day of court proceedings began with Advocate Katju appealing for extra time and for time to make her arguments. However, this was declined by the CJI owing to time constraints.

Proceedings began with Advocate Singhvi making his stance followed by Advocates Ramachandran and Vishwanathan. The CJI-led Supreme Court bench has given until Monday for hearing the petitions on same-sex marriage.

Marriage Equality Hearing

Arguments Made On Day 3 Of The Supreme Court Hearing: Singhvi began his arguments by firmly advocating for a gender-neutral approach to be adopted into the reading of the Special Marriage Act (SMA).

He also came forward with suggestions for Section 4 of the SMA which deals with marital age disparity. The SMA was not drafted keeping in mind homosexual marriages, however, it has been 69 years since the SMA was drafted and we have evolved since then.

Singhvi proposed that Section 4 of the SMA could set the age for female-female marriage as 18 and male-male marriage as 21. Furthermore, for a transgender person to marry another transgender person, the minimum age of marriage could be assigned to the gender they identified as.

Additionally, the subject of rape and its applicability as a criminal offence between same-sex couples in marriage was also tested by the bench. However, marital rape is still not criminalised in our country barring a Karnataka HC judgement.

Singhvi also broached the notice period in the SMA act, which gained more clarity in Advocate Ramachandran's arguments.

Ramachandran began his arguments by propounding the petition of a lesbian couple one of whom was a Dalit woman and the other an OBC woman hailing from rural districts. He used this to directly counter the argument of the Centre of same-sex marriage being an 'urban elitist concept'.

On the subject of a 30-day notice period announcing marriage, both Singhvi and Ramachandran argued that it was a violation of one's fundamental right. This is because one isn't obligated to declare one's private motives. Additionally, such a long notice period will allow parental interference, adversely impacting marginalised communities.

The CJI agreed that this defers one's fundamental right to get married and therefore cannot be regarded as procedural. Advocate Vishwanathan began his arguments by asking a very simple yet impactful question to the bench: "If we can be sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends, why not married spouses?"

He argued that procreation should not be the reason why homosexual couples are not granted constitutional recognition of a matrimonial alliance. This is because procreation is one's personal choice even in heterosexual marriages. He argued for the LGBTQ community's right to be parents by adoption.

The CJI commented that India is already in the intermediate stage where homosexuality has been decriminalised and homosexual relationships today are recognised as stable relationships instead of one-off relationships. What remains today is to see the community reach the full measure in India in terms of their fundamental rights.

Suggested Reading: Marriage Equality: What Day 2 Of The Supreme Court Hearing Looked Like