Another pair has filed a PIL with the Supreme Court asking for recognition of the fundamental right to marry anyone one chooses, irrespective of gender identity and sexual orientation, for all members of the LGTBQ+ community.

They ask that any limits based on gender or sexual orientation be removed from the Special Marriage Act, which was intended to be a secular law for the institution of marriage.

It makes the point that even though Section 4 of the Act allows any two people to solemnise a marriage, its subsequent conditions limit its application to only males and females.

“The use, in Section 4(c) of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’, as well as the use of gendered language such as the terms ‘husband/wife’ and ‘bride/bridegroom’ in other sections of the Act, limit the access to marriage to a couple comprising one ‘male’ and one ‘female’. Such limiting of access is violative of the fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ individuals and 1s unconstitutional,” the plea states.

It also refers to Navtej Singh Johar and Ors. v. Union of India, which held that homosexuals have the fundamental right to live with dignity, are “entitled to protection of equal laws, and are entitled to be treated in society as human beings without any stigma being attached to any of them.”