Nod to same-­sex marriage will ruin Special Marriage Act’s intent: Govt to Supreme Court | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Union government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that recognising LGBTQIA+ community members’ marriage rights would destroy the legislative intent to permit only man-woman marriage under the Special Marriage Act and pointed out that the court neither had the wherewithal to gauge who among them were males or females nor the competence to create a regulatory framework for same-sex marriages.
Prefacing his arguments with an appeal to a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices S K Kaul, S R Bhat, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha not to proceed further with the case as the subject was solely within Parliament’s domain, solicitor general Tushar Mehta said the SC could not superimpose its wisdom on the legislative intent behind the SM Act, which allowed only man-woman marriage.

Mehta said nearly two years of parliamentary debates preceding enactment of the SM Act, 1954, categorically exhibited that the issue of “homosexuality” and “lesbianism” was prevalent in society even then, and that parliamentarians consciously provided a framework for inter-caste and inter-faith marriage between a man and a woman without them having to relinquish their religions.

He said the Act provided for who can marry — a man of 21 years and a woman of 18 years — dispelling the notion of autonomy of choice to marry anyone of any age; prohibited bigamy, that is specifying how many times one can marry; provided prohibitory degrees of relationship to specify whom not to marry; and regulated how divorce could be granted and under what circumstances.

All these were squarely within the domain of Parliament and judges of the SC, however brilliant, did not have the wherewithal or competence to gauge the opinion of society and the general public to frame guidelines or laws on these aspects, the SG said.