The Ministry of Finance recently issued a notification confirming that members of the Queer community are permitted to open joint bank accounts and can also designate their queer partner as a nominee to receive funds in the event of the account holder's death.

The notification released by the Department of Financial Services on August 28 indicated that the Reserve Bank of India had also provided a similar clarification on August 21.

The clarification follows the Supreme Court's October 17, 2023 judgment in *Supriyo@Supriya Chakraborty & Anr v. Union of India*, where the Court ruled that there is no fundamental and unqualified right to marry. As a result, non-heterosexual couples cannot assert the right to marry as a fundamental or statutory right under the Special Marriage Act, 1956.

A five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and including Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha, stated that the Union Government, in response to its request, should establish a High-Powered Committee to address the socio-economic and other rights and needs of the queer community.

Although CJI Chandrachud, along with Justices Kaul, Narasimha, and Bhat, wrote separate judgments. Notably, only CJI Chandrachud specifically outlined the directions for addressing discrimination faced by the queer community and identified the issues that the Committee must address.

While acknowledging that queer persons have a fundamental right to form unions, and that the State's failure to recognize the "bouquet of entitlements which flow from a union" would result in a disparate impact on queer couples, CJI Chandrachud specifically addressed the issue of joint bank accounts for the queer community.

He stated that the committee shall consider: "Enabling partners in a queer relationship (i) to be treated as a part of the same family for the purposes of a ration card; and (ii) to have the facility of a joint bank account with the option to name the partner as a nominee, in case of death."