The dispute began with a gift, a gold bracelet, a family heirloom, from one partner to the other on their anniversary. Because the law does not recognise the two as spouses, the gift became taxable income; had they been a married heterosexual couple, it would have been exempt. The couple asked the Karnataka High Court to read ‘spouse’ in the tax law to cover them, stressing that they seek not marriage recognition but equal tax treatment. The Centre resisted, arguing that ‘spouse’ cannot be stretched beyond a legally recognised marriage, and that what the couple really seeks is a recognition the Supreme Court has left to Parliament.
Bengaluru: The Central Government has opposed a plea by a same-sex couple before the Karnataka High Court seeking the benefit of the Income Tax Act’s exemption on gifts received from a ‘relative’, submitting that the exemption available to a ‘spouse’ cannot be extended to same-sex partners without their relationship first being recognised as a legally valid marriage [Anurag Kalia and Another v. Union of India and Another].
The submissions were made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta before Justice B.M. Shyam Prasad, who is hearing the petition.
How the case arose
The petitioners have challenged the constitutional validity of the expression ‘spouse’ in the Fifth Proviso to Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, insofar as it excludes same-sex partners, and have sought a declaration that the exemption should apply to them despite their not being married. The occasion was a 22-carat gold bracelet, described as a family heirloom, gifted by one partner to the other on their relationship anniversary; their case is that the gift would have been exempt from tax had they been a married heterosexual couple.
The petitioners have framed their claim narrowly. They seek a declaration that the tax benefit should apply to persons in a long-term, stable same-sex relationship, or, in the alternative, a direction reading same-sex couples into the expression ‘spouse’ where they are in circumstances comparable to heterosexual couples who may be presumed to be married. They have been careful to say that they do not ask the Court to declare them married.
The Centre’s argument
The Solicitor General submitted that the word ‘spouse’ in Section 56 must be read alongside the definition of ‘relative’ in Section 2(41) of the Act, which includes a husband or wife. Although Section 56 uses the consolidated term ‘spouse’ rather than ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ separately, he argued, the term takes its colour from that definition:
“My submission would be that spouse under Section 56 of the Act would take colour from the definition of relative under Section 2(41), it’s a term to include both husband and wife.”
Giving ‘spouse’ a meaning beyond the relationship contemplated by the statutory scheme, the Centre submitted, could have consequences for other provisions of the Act, and, more broadly, for statutes dealing with succession, adoption and maintenance, several areas of Indian law operating on the basis of a person’s legal status as a married man or woman. The petition, on the Union’s case, in substance seeks recognition of a same-sex matrimonial relationship, which cannot be achieved through the judicial interpretation of a tax provision.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Supriyo v. Union of India, the Solicitor General submitted that the question of conferring legal recognition on same-sex marriage had been left to the legislature, and that allowing the petition would amount to judicially recognising such a relationship. He also referred to the concurring opinion of Justice Narasimha in that case to submit that a positive entitlement carrying statutory benefits cannot be created merely by reading additional categories into an existing provision.
On the equality challenge under Article 14, the Centre submitted that marriage is a valid basis for legislative classification, with an intelligible differentia and a rational nexus to the object of the law, and that the classification here rests on marital status rather than on sexual orientation. It illustrated the point by noting that even a heterosexual man and woman living together for a long period would not be treated as spouses merely by reason of their relationship. The Solicitor General clarified that the Union was not suggesting that two persons of the same sex cannot live together, only that the statutory rights and benefits under a given law depend on the legal categories that law recognises.
When the Court queried the use of the term ‘spouse’ in other statutes, including the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Solicitor General maintained that the underlying concept remained a spousal relationship arising from a legally recognisable marriage, and that extending it to other relationships could produce statutory consequences the legislature had not contemplated.
The wider backdrop
The petition is one of a cluster of similar challenges. An identical plea by another same-sex couple is pending before the Bombay High Court, which, as reported, adjourned its matter to await the outcome of the Karnataka proceedings, and comparable petitions have been reported in other States. All trace back to the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Supriyo, which declined to read same-sex marriage into existing law while affirming the constitutional protection of LGBTQ+ persons and leaving the question of legal recognition to Parliament, which has not since legislated on it. The present litigation tests whether, absent that recognition, particular statutory benefits keyed to the word ‘spouse’ can nonetheless be extended to same-sex couples.
Why it matters
The case frames a question that sits just downstream of the marriage-equality debate: whether the many concrete, everyday benefits that Indian law attaches to the status of ‘spouse’, here a tax exemption on gifts, can be claimed by same-sex partners even though their union is not recognised as a marriage. The petitioners’ strategy is deliberately modest, they disclaim any prayer for marriage recognition and ask only for equal fiscal treatment, while the Centre’s response is that the two cannot be separated, because ‘spouse’ is inseparable from a legally recognised marriage and reading it more widely would ripple across succession, adoption and maintenance law.
The competing characterisations are the heart of the dispute. To the petitioners, this is an Article 14 question about unequal economic treatment of similarly situated couples; to the Union, it is an attempt to secure, through the interpretation of a tax section, a recognition that Supriyo reserved to the legislature. How the Court classifies the claim, as a discrete question of tax equality or as a back-door route to matrimonial recognition, is likely to shape the outcome, and the Court’s own query about the meaning of ‘spouse’ across other statutes suggests it is alive to the knock-on stakes the Centre raised.
Nothing has been decided. These are the submissions of the Union at the hearing stage, the petitioners’ constitutional challenge remains to be adjudicated, and an identical matter awaits the same court’s view. Whatever the Karnataka High Court holds is likely to influence the pending cases elsewhere and to feed into the larger, unresolved national conversation, part legislative, part judicial, about the legal and fiscal incidents of same-sex relationships in India.
Case Title: Anurag Kalia and Another v. Union of India and Another [W.P. No. 28761 of 2025]
Bench: Justice B.M. Shyam Prasad, High Court of Karnataka
Appearing: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the Union; Advocates Varshitha K and Dr. Dhruv Janssen Sanghavi for the petitioners
Status: Part-heard. Centre has opposed the plea; the constitutional challenge to the expression ‘spouse’ in Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act remains pending. An identical matter is pending before the Bombay High Court.