PIL for recognizing marital relationships of LGBTQ community dismissed by Delhi HC
July 09, 2019A PIL has been dismissed by the Delhi High Court that sought legal recognition of marital and familial relationships, such as marriage, adoption and divorce, of people that belong to the LGBTQ community. The Court has refused to exercise its authority over the petition on recognizing the prayer of the petition to be legislative in nature.
The petition submitted before the Court recommended the Hindu Marriage Act and other personal laws related to marriage, divorce, custody and maintenance to contain familial and marital relations of the people belonging to the LGBTQ community.
Further, the petitioner had argued that to look into the matters of upliftment and welfare of the members of the LGBTQ community for eradicating the problems such as fear, shame, gender dysphoria, social pressure, depression and social stigma along with creating awareness among the general public an LGBTQ commission shall be set up. However, in a reply to the petition, the Centre had stated that all the necessary steps for upliftment of the LGBTQ community are being taken by the concerned ministry.
In this regard, the Court has stated that & lsquo We encourage the government to take up legislative efforts to address the needs of the LGBTQ community but we cannot explicitly direct the government to do the same.' Further, while rejecting the claim of the petitioner, it has stated that the matters stated in the prayer of the petition fall within the ambit of the Legislature and the Court cannot issue any binding directions for the same.