‘The right to have a family should include the right to adopt,’ feel LGBTQIA+ rights activists

While all eyes were on the Supreme Court’s verdict on a series of petitions seeking regularisation of same-sex marriage, the apex court denied adoption rights to same sex couples in its October 17 verdict.

The five-judge bench passed a 3:2 verdict against adoption rights for the LGBTQIA+ community. While Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul upheld that queer couples should be granted adoption rights, Justices Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha noted that non-heterosexual couples cannot be granted the right to jointly adopt a child. 

Senior Advocate Geeta Luthra, who appeared for one of the petitioners in this matter, spoke to Republic on the matter. 

Commenting on the verdict, Luthra said, "Adoption is one of the rights that the petitioners for same sex marriage have been asking for. The right to have a family should include the right to adopt and the right to have all aspects of a family, rights of insurance, rights of inheritance. However, these rights are yet to be made available to same sex couples. However, the committee will look into it.”

Luthra noted that the majority view says that these are statutory rights and adoption rights also stem from there. “While one partner of the same sex couple has the right to adopt, the adopted child will not be deemed to be the child of both the partners, which I believe is not the expansive definition for adoption of same sex couples,” stressed Luthra.

Advocate Meera Kaura Patel, counsel for intervenor Bobby Darling in this matter, said that  challenge to Regulation 5(3) of Central Adoption Regulatory Authority (CARA) has failed, which pertained to joint adoption by couples. Patel also noted that LGBTQIA+ people can still adopt a child in their individual capacity within the framework of the law.

The majority has considered it fit for CARA and the central government to consider the reality of de-facto families, where single individuals are permitted to adopt and thereafter start living in a non-matrimonial relationship, she said.

Expressing her disappointment over the current verdict, LGBTQIA+ rights activist Nilakshi Roy said that she hopes that these rights will be granted to the LGBTQIA+ community in the future.

"The society has just started to accept the LGBTQIA+ community. It will take some time before the community is granted all the rights that any other citizen of the country has. I am still hopeful and we will continue to fight. We have faith in the judicial system. I firmly hope that the state legislations and the Centre will put an end to the discrimination the LGBTQIA+ community has been facing."