Kerala gay couple moves HC seeking nod for same sex marriage

Kicking off yet another legal battle for the rights of LGBT community, a gay couple in Kerala has approached High Court seeking provision for legalising marriage of same sex couple.

Nikesh and Sonu, who were considered to be the first gay couple in Kerala who got married, approached the HC on Monday for legalising their marriage under the Special Marriage Act - 1954. A single bench admitted the writ petition and sent notices to the state and central governments.

The petitioners contented that the lack of provisions for people of same sex to marry amounted to discrimination and violation of Article 19 (1)(a) and Article 21 of the Constitution. They also cited the SC orders of 2018 decrimilaising consensual sex and 2014 recognising transgender community.

"The petitioners’ right to expression of love in the form that they aspire to conduct will be meaningless if their marital union is not recognised by law," said the petition.

The petitioners who are a businessman and IT professional got married last year. Later, when they tried to register their marriage under Special Marriage Act, they could not do so as the Act only provided for marriage between persons of opposite sex. "Though the text of the Act does not exclude homosexual unions from its ambit expressly, Section 4 and Schedules 2-4 to the Act carry a heterosexual undertone in its language as it shows marriage as an affair between a male and a female or between bride and bridegroom," said the petition.

Incidentally, the move by Nikesh and Sonu came close on the heels of another gay couple from Kerala, Nived Antony and Abdul Rahim got married recently. A pre-wedding photo shoot of the couple had even gone viral on the social media last month.