India’s Supreme Court has handed down it’s judgement on a case that sought to legalise same-sex marriage across the country.
In its long-awaited ruling the country’s Supreme Court said it was up to parliament to change the marriage laws and outside the purview of the court system.
“It lies within the domain of parliament and state legislatures to determine the law on marriage,” Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, said during his verdict.
Two of the other four judges on the bench agreed with Justice Chandrachud’s assessment. Two of the judges indicated they were supportive of laws creating civil unions.
In its submission to the case the Indian government had outlined its strong opposition to same-sex marriage.
“Living together as partners and having sexual relationship by same sex individuals … is not comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children,” the Ministry of Justice said in their submission.
While the court did not rule in favour of allowing marriages between same-sex couples they did say it was no longer acceptable for LGBTIQA+ people to be facing discrimination in other areas.
In the ruling the court said the government should form a committee to look into entitlements for LGBTIQA+ people. rights advocates have highlighted that the partners of gay couples cannot make medical decisions for their loved ones, or automatically become benefactors when a partner dies.
With one of the world’s largest populations its estimated that as many as 135 million LGBTIQA+ people live in India.
OIP Staff
You can support our work by subscribing to our Patreon
or contributing to our GoFundMe campaign.
