On Monday, The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of pleas seeking legal validation for same-sex marriages The pleas are listed for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala.

On January 6, 2023, the Supreme Court clubbed all such pending petitions before different high courts, including the Delhi High Court. 

The Counsel member for the Centre Advocate Arundhati Katju, representing the petitioners, prepare a common compilation of the written submissions, documents and precedents on which reliance would be placed during the course of the hearing.

The previous order of 6th January stated that - "Soft copies of the compilations shall be exchanged between the parties and shall be made available to the court. List the petition along with connected petitions and transferred cases on March 13, 2023, for directions," 

The counsel for multiple petitioners submitted that they want the Supreme Court to transfer all the cases to itself for an authoritative pronouncement on the issue and that the Centre can file its response in the Supreme Court of India. Earlier, on January 3, the Supreme Court informed that it would hear on January 6 the pleas seeking a transfer of petitions for recognition of same-sex marriages pending before the high courts to the top court.

Last year in December, Supreme Court seek the Centre's response to two pleas seeking a transfer of the petitions pending in the Delhi High Court for directions to recognise same-sex marriages to itself.

A bench headed by CJI Chandrachud, who was also part of the Constitution bench that in the year 2018 decriminalised consensual gay sex, issued a notice to the Centre in November last year, besides seeking Attorney General R Venkataramani's assistance in dealing with the pleas.

The top court's five-judge Constitution bench, in a path-breaking unanimous verdict delivered on September 6, 2018, held that consensual sex among adult homosexuals or heterosexuals in a private space is not a crime while striking down a part of the British-era penal law that criminalised it on the ground that it violated the constitutional right to equality and dignity.

The petitions on which the top court issued the notice in November last year have sought a direction that the right to marry a person of one's choice be extended to LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people as part of their fundamental right.

One of the petitions has sought an interpretation of the Special Marriage Act, of 1954 in a gender-neutral manner where a person is not discriminated against due to his sexual orientation.

The Supreme court, in its 2018 judgment, held that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that criminalised consensual gay sex was "irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary".