The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has opposed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to allow same-sex couples to adopt children, The Indian Express reported on Friday.

The commission contended that the demand for changes to the adoption law is not related to the question of the legalisation of same-sex marriage, which is being considered by the court. The application was filed on Thursday.

“As the sole question before the court is the scope of the term ‘marriage’, the prayer relating to the adoption regulations is totally extraneous to the subject matter of the case,” the child rights body has said. “The same ought therefore to be ignored by the court.”

The Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of several laws that only recognise marriages between a man and a woman.

The petitioners have argued that these provisions are discriminatory against the LGBTQ+ community and infringe on their fundamental right to dignity and privacy. On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government has opposed these petitions, arguing that same-sex marriages are “not comparable with the Indian family unit concept”.

The government’s stand is in consonance with that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, who have maintained that marriages should be allowed only among opposite genders.

One of the petitioners before the Supreme Court, Amburi Roy, has demanded that Sections 5(2) A and 5(3) of the Adoption Regulations, 2022, be declared unconstitutional.

The provisions deal with the eligibility criteria for prospective adoptive parents, their physical, emotional, mental and financial capability, as well as criminal records or records of abuse.

Section 5(2) A of the law says that single women can adopt a child of any gender, but single males cannot adopt a girl child.

Section 5(3) of the law says only a couple that has had at least two years of a stable marital relationship can adopt a child. The only exceptions to this rule are adoptions by relatives or step-parents of the child.

On Thursday, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said that that body is concerned about the protection of child rights and the monitoring of the Juvenile Justice Act. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 deals with adoption, as also several other subjects related to child welfare.

“What we have said in the application is that the law as it currently exists needs to be upheld,” Kanoongo told The Indian Express. “Under the present law, a single man, or two men [a couple] cannot adopt a girl child. In that matter, we decided to intervene in court as the rights of children cannot be dragged into this case or determined.”