India’s highest court refused to allow same-gender marriages in the nation in a decision made earlier this month. According to Al-Jazeera, the ruling follows a hearing held in April and May in which the court heard arguments. Three of the five judges on the court agreed that the issue of same-gender marriage should be left up to the legislature. “The court, in the exercise of the power of judicial review, must steer clear of matters, particularly those impinging on policy, which fall in the legislative domain,” Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud writes in the decision.
It remains very unlikely that India’s government will take action towards legalizing same-gender marriage considering that the government urged the court to rule against the petitioners. According to Reuters, the government’s filing to the Supreme Court says, “The petitions, which merely reflect urban elitist views, cannot be compared with the appropriate legislature which reflects the views and voices of far wider spectrum and expands across the country,” According to the New York Times, while the judges returned the decision to the government, Justice Chandrachud did rebuke the claim that queerness is urban and elitist. He writes in his decision that it’s not just “an English-speaking man with a white-collar man who can claim to be queer … but equally a woman working in an agricultural job in a village.”
The case comes only five years after the 2018 ruling that lifted a ban on gay sex in the country. While the ruling is a disappointment to LGBTQ+ groups in the country, it does offer some glimmers of hope. Justice Chandrachud did say in the decision that the right to choose one’s partner is a right granted to all citizens, meaning that, while same-gender couples can’t marry, they have the legal right to be partners, with Chandrachud calling the right to choose one’s partner one of the most important life decisions one can make. “This right goes to the root of the right to life and liberty under Article 21 (of the Indian Constitution),” his ruling reads, according to Al-Jazeera. According to the previously mentioned New York Times article, the ruling also allows transgender people to marry each other as long as they are opposite genders.
Pranav Grover, an LGBTQ+ activist waiting outside the court for the ruling, tells CNN that the ruling was “diplomatic.” “It came in perspective with keeping both parties happy,” explains the young man. Other activists such as Suvir Saran—who is also a celebrity chef in India—tries to find the positive by saying that while the court “didn’t give us the right to marry, it has used the bench as a classroom for educating the legislators and the citizens about homosexuality and the other.”
Not every activist was as optimistic. “This was indeed a historic missed opportunity for the Supreme Court of India to herald in a new era in what has been a long fight for equal rights of LGBTI people,” says Aakar Patel, chair of the board of Amnesty International India in a statement. “All people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be able to enjoy the full range of human rights, including the right to marry.”
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