Topic 5 of 20
GS Paper 2 Same-Sex Rights & Constitutional Equality Indirect Discrimination Through Tax Law - Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act

Two software engineers in Bengaluru have shared a home since 2019. When one gifted the other a gold bracelet worth a little over a lakh, the tax office wanted 25 percent of its value - because the law does not recognise them as spouses or even as relatives.

| | Source: The Indian Express | Topic 5 of 20

Summary

A same-sex couple in Bengaluru has challenged the definition of "spouse" under Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act before the Karnataka High Court, arguing that taxing a gift between them - while an identical gift between married heterosexual partners would be exempt - amounts to indirect discrimination on the basis of sex.

The Centre opposed the plea, telling the court the exemption rests on "legally verifiable" relationships such as marriage or blood, not on sex. The court will hear the matter again on August 4.

WHY IN NEWS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS

The Union government this week formally opposed a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court filed by Anurag Kalia and Akhilesh Godi, a same-sex couple together for over seven years, who want the tax exemption for gifts between "relatives" extended to them. The dispute began when a gold bracelet gifted between the two attracted a 25 percent tax liability, plus surcharge and cess, because the couple cannot legally be recognised as spouses.

Standard News

THE EIGHT-YEAR GAP BETWEEN DECRIMINALISATION AND A TAX EXEMPTION

In 2018, Navtej Singh Johar told the Indian state it could no longer treat gay relationships as criminal. In 2023, Supriyo told the state it did not have to treat them as marriages. What nobody has yet resolved is everything sitting in the space between those two rulings - and this week, that gap showed up as a 25 percent tax bill on a gold bracelet.

What Section

56(2)(x) Actually Does The provision itself is mundane. Any gift worth more than Rs 50,000 counts as taxable income - unless it comes from a "relative," a term the law defines to include a spouse. This exists to stop people from disguising untaxed transfers as gifts.

It is not written to target same-sex couples at all. That is precisely the petitioners' argument: the discrimination is not in the text, it is in what the text silently assumes - that only a legally recognised marriage or blood, counts as a real relationship worth protecting from tax.

Where the Real Argument Is Happening The

Centre's defence, made by ASG Aravind Kamath, deliberately avoids saying the classification is about sex. Instead, it rests on administrability: Parliament confined the exemption to marriage and blood precisely because those relationships are "legally verifiable," letting an assessing officer confirm a claim with minimal intrusion into anyone's personal life.

A "stable relationship," Kamath argued, has no such external test - how would an officer even inquire into it? That argument sounds neutral. But it only works because Indian law gives same-sex couples no verifiable status to point to in the first place.

Supriyo left marriage and civil unions to Parliament and Parliament has done nothing. So a same-sex couple cannot become "legally verifiable" no matter how long they cohabit, jointly own property or build a shared life - the seven years Kalia and Godi have already put in.

The Centre's supposedly neutral test for administrability is actually built on a gap that only Parliament's own inaction created. This is the real story the tax dispute is exposing: Navtej Johar removed the criminal penalty for being gay, but it never obligated the state to build the ordinary legal architecture - marriage, civil union or even a lighter-touch registration - that turns a relationship into something the tax code, banks, insurers or hospitals can recognise.

Decriminalisation ended one kind of harm and left a second, quieter one untouched: every institution that asks "are you legally related to this person" now has a ready-made reason to say no. Justice Shyam Prasad's own question to the Centre - that reading down the provision "introduces uncertainty"

  • is really asking who should bear the cost of that uncertainty. Right now, it is being paid, literally, by same-sex couples at 25 percent plus surcharge. For the exam, the sharper point is not "Article 14 versus Article 15" as a checklist. It is that constitutional silences do not stay neutral - they eventually get filled in by whichever institution moves next and here it was the Income Tax Department.

Quick Facts

  • The couple has cohabited in a jointly owned Bengaluru home since 2019. The gift in question was a 22-karat gold bracelet weighing 14.41 grams, valued at Rs 1,15,500. Under Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act, gifts above Rs 50,000 from a non-relative are taxed as income from other sources.

    Gifts from a spouse or blood relative are exempt from this rule. The Centre's counsel is Additional Solicitor General Aravind Kamath. The case is being heard by Justice B M Shyam Prasad and returns to court on August 4.

Beyond The Headlines
GS Paper 2 Indirect Discrimination Through Tax Law - Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act

Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.

Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:

1

The full breakdown of how Article 14's "reasonable classification" test applies specifically to Kamath's "legally verifiable relationship" defence - and where it may fail

2

The way forward the courts and Parliament could take short of full marriage recognition and why that middle path matters more than the marriage question itself

3

How this case connects to a wider pattern of post-Supriyo litigation on joint bank accounts and insurance nomination

4

The constitutional provisions most likely to decide this case when it returns to court on August 4

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Section 56(2)(x) Income Tax Act Article 14 Article 15 Navtej Singh Johar case Supriyo case indirect discrimination gift tax exemption same-sex rights

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