One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.
Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.
TL;DR: Same-sex marriage isn't recognised in India, so no LGBT-friendly lawyer can create one for you. What can be built is a working document set: a will for each partner, a power of attorney, an advance medical directive, a an hospital authorisation naming your partner as the person the ward staff can speak to, and nominations on every account you hold. None of it is romantic. All of it is what actually decides who gets to sit at the bedside and who gets the flat afterwards.
Key facts before anything else
- Two people of the same sex cannot marry in India. No registrar can register it and no lawyer can create it.
- Because there is no marriage, there is no automatic inheritance, no automatic right to consent to treatment, no automatic right to a bank balance, and no automatic right to be treated as "family" by a hospital.
- In 2023 the Supreme Court declined to legalise same-sex marriage and left the question to Parliament. There is no timeline for that.
- What you can do is build a document set: a will each, a power of attorney, an advance medical directive, a hospital authorisation, nominations, and joint title wherever you can get it.
- Every one of those documents can be challenged after death by a biological family. That is a real limit, not a scare tactic.
- Most of the set is cheap and fast. A will does not need stamp paper. A nomination is a one-page form.
What happened, as far as I can describe it
The call came on a weekday afternoon from a partner who had been at a hospital reception desk for two hours. Her partner of eleven years had been brought in that morning. The desk wanted a signature from "family". She was not family. There was a form with a box for "relationship to patient", and nothing she could honestly write in it that would open the door.
She was not married to her partner. There was no will. There was no power of attorney. The bank account was in one name. The flat was in one name. The family, who had not been in touch for years, were on their way.
What she wanted from me was straightforward: make her family. Not in a symbolic sense. She wanted a piece of paper that would let her sign for treatment, walk into the ward, and keep living in the house. I have to rewrite a fair amount of what she said, and I am not repeating her file. But the shape of it is common enough that I can describe the shape without describing her.
We only ever had one side of this. The family's version of the same eleven years may be nothing like hers, and a court would hear both.
What the law in India actually says
There is no marriage, and there is no back door to one
The Special Marriage Act, the personal laws, and the registration machinery all work on the assumption of a husband and a wife. In Supriyo v. Union of India, decided in October 2023, the Supreme Court was asked to read same-sex couples into that framework. It declined. The Court said the right to marry was not, on the majority view, a fundamental right that could be extended this way, and that Parliament would have to legislate. Some judges expressed support for civil unions. That has not become law.
So if anyone tells you a particular forum or a particular LGBT-friendly lawyer can get you a marriage certificate, they are either mistaken or selling you something. There is no queue you can join and no application form that a registrar can accept.
Transgender persons and marriage — genuinely unsettled
Where a transgender person marries, different High Courts have taken different views, and the law is not settled. I am not going to give you a confident answer here because there isn't one. If this is your situation, it needs to be looked at on its own facts and in your own state.
No marriage means no automatic rights at all
This is the part people underestimate. Not being married does not merely mean you miss out on a wedding. It means:
- If your partner dies without a will, you inherit nothing. Under the personal laws and the Indian Succession Act, the property goes to blood relatives. You are not on that list.
- You cannot give consent for your partner's surgery or treatment. In an emergency, a doctor will look for the next of kin.
- You may be refused access to the ward, to medical records, or to the body after death.
- Your partner's share in a jointly owned flat will not pass to you automatically. In India co-ownership is generally treated as tenancy-in-common, which means each half is dealt with separately on death.
- If you are not on the tenancy or licence agreement, your landlord has no obligation to keep you after your partner is gone.
What can an LGBT-friendly lawyer actually put in place?
Not a marriage. A set of documents. Here is the order I usually work in, and why.
1. A will for each of you
This is the first thing, because death is the risk you cannot postpone and because the will is the only document that speaks after you are gone.
Under the Indian Succession Act, 1925, any adult of sound mind can make a will and can leave property to anybody — including a partner who is not a spouse. No stamp paper is needed. You can write it yourself, though I would not. Registration is optional, and a registered will is not automatically a stronger will, but registration makes it much harder for someone to claim the document never existed. A will can be challenged after death on grounds of mental capacity or undue influence, and a family that wants to fight will fight. You are not removing that risk. You are making the fight much harder for them.
Two practical points. Keep the original somewhere your partner can actually reach on the day it matters, not in a locker in your own name. And name an executor who will not fold under pressure from the family — a partner can be an executor, and often should be.
2. A power of attorney
Governed by the Powers of Attorney Act, 1882. A general power of attorney lets your partner sign on financial matters; a specific one can be confined to, say, a particular flat or a particular bank.
Two warnings. First, if it deals with immovable property, it will attract stamp duty under your state's stamp law, and if it authorises a sale or transfer you should register it under the Registration Act, 1908. Rates differ from state to state. Ask before you sign, because an under-stamped power of attorney is a paperweight. Second, a power of attorney dies with the person who gave it. It is worthless the moment your partner dies. That is precisely why the will comes first.
3. An advance medical directive and a hospital authorisation
The Supreme Court recognised advance medical directives, or living wills, in Common Cause v. Union of India in 2018, and the procedure has since been eased. In theory you can set out what treatment you would and would not want if you are unable to speak.
In practice, compliance is patchy. Many hospitals have no protocol for a living will at all, and staff at a reception desk on a Sunday morning have never seen one. So do not rely on the directive alone. Alongside it, keep a short, signed, notarised authorisation naming your partner as the person the hospital may speak to and take consent from. It is not a statutory magic wand. But a piece of paper with your signature on it changes the conversation at a ward desk far more often than a same-sex partner's word does.
4. Nominations on everything
Bank accounts, fixed deposits, demat accounts, mutual funds, insurance policies, provident fund, gratuity. A nomination can be made in favour of any person, and it takes ten minutes per institution.
Understand what a nomination is, though. Courts in India have consistently held that a nominee receives the money as a trustee for the legal heirs — the nominee does not become the owner. For a same-sex partner this cuts both ways. The nomination gets the money released into your hands without the family having to sign. It does not settle who the money belongs to. Your will is what settles that. Make them match, or the family will point at the gap.
5. Joint names on title and on agreements
Where you can, buy in both names, and put both names on the loan, the insurance, the utility connections, the car, and the tenancy or leave-and-licence agreement. If your landlord is willing, adding your partner to the rent agreement is one of the cheapest protections available. Where a society or a landlord refuses, that refusal is itself information you need early.
6. A written cohabitation agreement
There is no statute that gives a live-in agreement the force of a marriage, and I want to be clear about that. But a written, signed agreement recording who contributed what, who pays for what, and what happens to shared property is evidence. If things fall apart, evidence is what you have. If it deals with immovable property, get it stamped and registered.
Separately, a partner in a live-in relationship may have access to the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which covers a "relationship in the nature of marriage". Whether that extends to a same-sex relationship has been argued both ways before different courts. It is not a settled answer, and any advice that tells you it is settled is guessing.
7. Children
This is where the law is hardest. A partner who is not a legal parent has no parental rights, no matter how long they have raised the child. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 and the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021 are drawn around married couples and, in limited situations, single women. As the statutes stand, a same-sex couple is outside them.
A non-parent can apply for guardianship under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, and a court will decide on the basis of what is best for the child, not on the basis of the adults' wishes. That is a long road. I say this plainly because a couple who wants children deserves to hear it before they spend money, not after.
What these documents cannot do
They cannot make you a spouse. They cannot stop a family from contesting a will. They cannot guarantee that a bank manager, a landlord, a society secretary or a ward nurse will accept a power of attorney on the day you produce it. They cannot give you a share in your partner's ancestral property, because you were never an heir in the first place.
On some fact patterns there is genuinely nothing to argue, and I would rather say so than take a fee and string it out. But there is almost always something to build. That is the difference between the couple who are locked out and the couple who are annoying to lock out, and the second position is worth having.
What to do in the next two weeks
Start with the wills. Do them together, do them this month, and do not wait for a Parliament that has shown no hurry. Then the hospital authorisation, because it is one page and it is the one you will want at 2 a.m. Then the nominations, which cost nothing but an afternoon and a pen. Then joint names, wherever anyone will accept a second name — the bank, the electricity connection, the rent agreement. The guardianship question, if there are children, is the one item I would not try to do yourself and would not rush.
None of this is a substitute for a marriage. It is a substitute for having nothing.
What to bring to a first consultation
I do not need a long story in the first email. What actually helps is the paper. Send tenancy or leave-and-licence agreements, loan documents, bank and demat account statements, insurance policies, and any nomination already filed. If a partner has children, the birth certificate and any existing guardianship order. If there has already been a death, the death certificate and the date it was issued. Put it in a short covering note. Two lines is fine: who you are, what the immediate problem is. Write to /contact-us or book a slot at /book. If nothing has happened yet and you are simply getting your affairs in order, say that too, because that is a different and much better conversation than the one that starts at a hospital desk.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a same-sex couple get married in India right now?
No. There is no statute under which a registrar can register a same-sex marriage, and the Supreme Court in 2023 declined to create one by interpretation. Whatever any forum or adviser tells you, there is no application you can file that produces a marriage certificate.
Is a live-in relationship the same as a marriage for legal purposes?
Not the same, but not nothing either. Certain statutes and certain courts have recognised a "relationship in the nature of marriage" for specific purposes, most notably the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. Whether that protection extends to a same-sex couple has been decided differently in different places and is not settled. Anything more specific than that depends on your facts and your state.
Will a will stop my partner's family from taking the flat?
It will put you in a much stronger position. It will not make the fight impossible. A will can be challenged for want of sound mind or for undue influence, and a family that is determined will try. What a properly drafted, registered will does is shift the burden onto them and make the litigation expensive and slow for the side that brought it.
Can my partner sign for my treatment in an emergency?
Not automatically. Without a document, a hospital will look for the next of kin, and that will usually be a blood relative. A signed and notarised authorisation naming your partner, kept with a copy of the advance medical directive, is the practical answer. It is not a statutory guarantee that every ward will accept it, but it changes what happens at the desk far more often than not.
Is a nomination enough to make my partner the owner of my money?
No. Indian courts have consistently treated a nominee as holding the money for the legal heirs, not as the beneficial owner. A nomination gets the funds released without the family's signature. The will decides who actually owns them. Keep the two consistent, or the gap between them becomes the argument.
I've already been locked out. Is it too late?
Usually not, but the options narrow with every week. If your name is on a rent agreement, a utility connection, a loan, or a bank account, that paper is doing work for you whether or not anyone intended it to. Gather it and get advice on the specific position you are in rather than the general one.
This article is general information about Indian law and is not legal advice on your own situation. Every document set has to be drafted on the facts, the state, and the assets involved.
Contact
Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India. Chamber No. 86, Lawyers' Chamber, Supreme Court of India, New Delhi - 110001. Phone +91 97295 06771. Email me@sudhirrao.com. Criminal defence, cyber crime, economic offences. Family and matrimonial matters are handled by Adv. Jyoti Rao, associate, Bar Council of Delhi D/891/2023.
Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India