KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 5
Patan High Court has upheld the decision of Kathmandu District Court denying the marriage registration of Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey.
The couple who has now become representative of the entire LGBTQIA+ legal rights in Nepal since eight years, married six years ago in a traditional Hindu ceremony at the prominent Sohrakhutte Paknajol Ganesh temple in Kathmandu where they vowed to each other to stay together for seven lives.
After KDC Justice Madhav Prasad Mainali issued an order stating that the legal system is there to register the marriage of a man and a woman or a male and a female only, Surendra and Maya then moved Patan High Court to register their marriage.
"According to the legal provision for marriage through registration in Section 77 of the National Civil Code, 2017, it is presented by this court that marriage is done by registration and in Section 77 (1) there is a legal provision that a man or woman can apply for marriage through registration. As the two persons applying to get married through registration are not men and women of different sexes, the court has refused to register the marriage through illegal registration mentioned in section 77 according to the application," reads the Kathmandu District Court order.
Following the decision of the KDC, Patan High Court upheld it. "Even Patan High Court could not deliver justice to Maya and Surendra," said former lawmaker Sunil Babu Pant who is also the founder of Blue Diamond Society. "No way is left other than knocking the door of the Supreme Court again which had ruled to legalise the marriage in June," he added.
In the last four months of several rounds of hearings, Patan High Court sought expert opinions through amicus curiae. Senior Advocate Major Thapa and Shanti Khatiwada presented their arguments as amicus curiae experts. However, Patan High Court today upheld the verdict given by the KDC stating the same 77 (1) clause of the National Civil Code, 2017.
"The learned justices are prejudiced and conservative. They are tremendously reluctant to change that which can be seen as challenging the Supreme Court's decision," said Pant.
He further said, "Tomorrow, we are going to discuss with our advocates. We will then move to the apex court again."
Earlier, on June 28, the Supreme Court's Justice Til Prasad Shrestha issued a groundbreaking interim order, instructing the government to put in place a transitional mechanism allowing the registration of same-sex and other non-traditional marriages (as Nepal, since 2007, officially recognises three genders - male, female, and other - the ruling effectively allowed six different types of marriage to be registered).
A version of this article appears in the print on October 6, 2023, of The Himalayan Times
