Same Sex Marriage- Supreme Court Constitution Bench Hearing- DAY-3 LIVE UPDATES

Vishwanathan: Even today people who are beyond age of reproductive capacity- women above 45 who may medically be unsafe for pregnancy are allowed to marry. Heterosexuals who have decided to not procreate can marry.

Vishwanathan: They say that by your very nature, you cannot procreate. Is procreation a valid defence for negating the rights of recognition of marriage? 

Sr Adv KV Vishwanathan: I appear in Zainab Patel v UOI. At the bottom of these constitutional issues is one plea of the petitioners here. To simplify it, it is this- If we can be sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends, why not married spouse?

CJI DY Chandrachud: Equally, we have to be careful that in the guise of the protocol we do not empower these officers who come into possession of information to use informal methods to use this information.

Ramachandran: Couples on the run from their families need protection of the State through this court. Because if the state has a duty to protect FRs, such a protocol is necessary.

Ramachandran: Finally the provision which needs to go consequentially is 46.

Ramachandran: Let me set out the main provisions which have to go and the consequential provisions which need to go. 5-8 will be the main provisions. The consequential provisions would be 9, 10, 14...

Justice Kohli: This would be equally true for heterosexual couples too.

Ramachandran: Yes, it should be struck down for all. It's a retrograde provision. And it's obnoxious.

CJI DY Chandrachud: There is a very real likelihood that this will disproportionately affect situations in which one of the spouses either belongs to a marginalized community. This has a disproportionate impact on most vulnerable of society.

CJI DY Chandrachud: If the purpose is to ensure that people do not enter into a marriage which will suffer from being void, then this is not the least restrictive means which the proportionality test requires us to employ.