Today, the Supreme court of India has pronounced its judgement on providing of legal recognition to Same-Sex marriages in India. The judgement was delivered after the court reserved it on May 11 of this year.
The court has declined to approve queer marriages in India, stating that it is the responsibility of the parliament to make decisions on this issue. However, the court has granted adoption rights to queer couples and has also mandated that both the central and state governments should take actions to support and safeguard queer couples.
The judgment was pronounced by a Constitutional bench of 5 judges consisting of the Chief Justice of India Dr. DY Chandrachud, along with Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha.
The judgement comes in response to a batch of 20 petitions that were filed before the court to grant validation and recognition to Same-sex Marriages. The said petitions faced backlash from the Central government.
The CJI while delivering the judgement made the following statements:
“ The Constitution does not grant fundamental right to marry and institutions cannot be elevated to the status of fundamental right.”
“The SC cannot strike down SMA because of institutional limitations and cannot read down words and it would lead to judicial legislation and courts must steer clear of policy matters”
“Freedom of queer to enter into union is guaranteed under the constitution denial of rights to them is a denial of fundamental right violation. Right to enter into union cannot be based on sexual orientation.”
“The court also ruled that the decisions made in navtej and puttaswamy guarantee the right to queer couples to enter into a union.”
The Supreme court also ordered for the establishment of a committee on the recommendations of S.G. Mehta. The committee shall be set up with domain experts, it will hold a wide stakeholder consultations with the queer community, the community is to see if such families can have ration cards, can have insurance facilities and the medical practitioners have the obligation to consult family for terminal illness, rights from employment, gratuity etc. The committee’s report should be looked at the union govt level.
The court also stated that the state, Union, UTs shall not bar queer people from getting into a union to avail benefits of the state.
Case: Supriyo aka Supriya Chakraborty & Abhay Dang V. Union of India thr. Its Secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice & other Connected Cases, W.P.(C) No. 1011/2022 Diary No. 36593/2022.
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