Petitioner 3

 Article 14
 Article 14 of the Indian Constitution guarantees every citizen ‘equality before law and equal
protection of laws to all persons.’ It forbids class legislation but permits reasonable
classification. The Hon’ble Supreme Court laid down two tests which must be satisfied to pass
the test of reasonable classification i.e. intelligible differentia and rational nexus. Further, the
traditional concept of equality was broadened in the case of E. P. Royappa v. State of Tamil
Nadu wherein it was held that equality is a dynamic concept and its dimensions cannot be
cribbed, cabined, and confined with traditional doctrinaire limits. When the classification is not
on the basis of intelligible differentia and has no nexus with the object sought to be achieved,
then the differentiation is deemed to be invalid.[14)
 Recently, the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code i.e. it
decriminalized consensual sexual relations between two adults of any sexuality. However, the
Bill goes against this judgement. It denies the rights of homosexual couples to commission a
child and refuses to acknowledge these couples as ‘legitimate’.
 in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, the Court had recognised members of the
marginalised transgender community as the “third gender” and observed that discrimination on
account of gender identity and sexual orientation undermines equality before the law and equal
protection of the laws, thereby violating Article 14 of the Constitution.[37] Consequently, the
absolute debarment of same-sex partners and persons with non-binary gender identities from
the purview of the Bill is in contravention of their fundamental rights and the law laid down by
India’s Supreme Court in notable judicial pronouncement.
 There is no reasonable nexus of allowing altruistic surrogacy to Indian citizens who are married,
widowed or divorced and exclusion of others with the object of the Bill. A closer look at the Bill
reveals that the classification is based on marriage and such a classification is not reasonable
under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.
 The absence of availability of the option of surrogacy to unmarried individuals, same-sex
couples, transgenders and foreigners is neither intelligible differentia nor does it relate to the
object of the bill which is curbing exploitation in the domain od surrogacy practice. With respect
to this notion, it can be said that the provisions of the Bill do not fully satisfy Article 14 of the
Indian Constitution.
 Article 21
 The Supreme Court has ruled that the right to life inherent in Article 21 of the Constitution also
encompasses the ‘right to livelihood.Further, in the case of Devika Biswas v. Union of India[17],
the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that right to reproduction in an important component of ‘right
to life’ under Article 21. Reproductive rights of a woman include the right to carry a baby, give
birth and raise children. Rights to privacy, dignity and integrity are also included.In the matter of
R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu,[18] after referring to Kharak Singh[19] and American
decisions, the learned Judge stated the law in the following words: “any right to privacy must
encompass and protect the personal intimacies of the home, thefamily, marriage, motherhood,
procreation and child rearing”.
 The bill entirely based on the notion of marriage and such classification goes against Article 21
of the constitution. Most laws and rights that fall in the domain of family law in India, including
those related to adoption, surrogacy, succession, guardianship and so on, are in some way or
the other tied to marriage. And since the LGBTQ+ community has been excluded, so far, from
the right to marriage, access to all these other laws is curtailed too.As a result, denying
surrogacy rights to LGBTQIA+ people, single people, and elderly couples and restricting it to
heterosexual couples, widows, and divorced women of a specific age breaches Article 21’s
fundamental right to life.
 Article 15
 In National Legal Services Authority vs. Union of India (2014), the Supreme Court widened the
ambit of ‘sex’ as under Article 15 of the Indian Constitution to include ‘gender’ as well. If same-
sex marriages are not given legal recognition, then such discrimination will solely be based on
the gender of the individuals and hence in direct contravention of Article 15. Therefore barring
Homosexual Marriages or not giving recognition to them will be in contravention to Article 15.
 Even though homosexuality has been decriminalized in Navtej Singh Johar, unless civil rights like
marriage and adoption are recognized by the Court, the right to be with a person of one’s choice
is rendered meaningless. As discussed above, it contravenes a homosexual individual’s right to
equality and the right to marry the person of his/her choice.