In a recent hearing, the Uttarakhand High Court ruled that while partners of same sex cannot get married, the law allows them to live together.
The judgment came on June 12 and was announced by Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma, who noted:
…even if the parties, who are living together though they are belonging to the same gender; they are not competent to enter into a wedlock, but still they have got a right to live together even outside the wedlock.
While adding:
[It] is the strength provided by our Constitution, which lies in its acceptance of plurality and diversity of the culture. Intimacy of marriage, including the choice of partner, which individual make, on whether or not to marry and whom to marry are the aspects which exclusively lies outside the control of the state or the society.
The aforementioned hearing was in connection with a petition filed by a woman, claiming that her same-sex partner was detained by the latter’s family members, even though the two have been in a relationship since 2016.
But the case had its own twists and turns as the detained woman first said that she wants to continue her relationship (on May 27), but later changing her stance and saying she doesn’t want to do that and is under no pressure from her family members (June 8). As a result, the petition was dismissed.
However, it led to important acknowledgments, as the High Court further elaborated on the legal aspects of a live-in relationship of a homosexual couple.
In view of the above concept, this court is in agreement that the consensual cohabitation between two adults of the same sex cannot in our understanding be illegal far or less a crime because it’s a fundamental right which is being guaranteed to the person under Article 21 of the Constitution of India…