New Delhi
The Supreme Court, in its recent Constitution bench ruling, did not grant any legal recognition to same-sex couples and refused to strike down or read into gender neutral person in place of male and female existing under the Special Marriage Act. The top court of the country left it to the legislature to take a call on enacting the marriage equality law. However, it asked the Union and state governments to ensure that the LGBTQ+ community is not discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation and queer individuals are not refused access to any goods or services. All five judges of the Constitution Bench unanimously agreed that there exists no unqualified right to marriage and accepted the Centre’s proposal that a committee to be headed by the Cabinet Secretary will be set up to examine what administrative steps could be taken to address basic social benefit concerns relating to same-sex couples. Review of the impact of legislative framework on the flow of such benefits requires a deliberative and consultative exercise, which exercise the legislature and executive are constitutionally suited to, and tasked, to undertake, the apex court said. The Supreme Court said that a marriage entered into by a transgender person – in the nature of a heterosexual relationship – must be recognised by the law. It stressed that a transgender man has the right to marry a cisgender woman under the laws governing marriage in the country, including personal laws, adding that even intersex persons who identify as a man or a woman and seek to enter into a heterosexual marriage would also have the right to marry. However, the apex court laid down that the right to a civil union cannot be found to be a part of fundamental rights under the Constitution.
