Supreme Court transfers to itself all pleas pending before HCs on same-sex marriages

The court will hear the matter next on March 13.

“As writ petitions are pending before Delhi, Kerala and Gujarat High Courts involving the same question, we are of the view that they should be transferred and decided by this court. We direct that all writ petitions shall stand transferred to this court,” the order said.

It also deputed Advocate Arundhati Katju as nodal counsel for the petitioners and Advocate Kanu Agarwal as nodal counsel for the government side.

The Supreme Court is seized of a batch of pleas in the matter, including one by a 46-year-old Indian national, who said he married a US citizen in September 2010 in the US and registered their marriage in Pennsylvania, in June 2014.

He and his partner, residents of Pune, said their attempts to get their marriage registered under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, came to a naught as the Registrar of Marriages refused to grant their request.

They said they subsequently wrote to the Indian embassy in Washington DC, seeking to register the marriage under Foreign Marriage Act, 1969, but that request was also turned down.

Among other petitions are those filed by one Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang and Parth Phiroze Mehrotra and Uday Raj Anand, seeking recognition of same sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.