Key Points
New Delhi: Historically, marriage has been a union solemnised according to customs or personal laws, and its existence is regardless of the State, which can accommodate but not abolish it, held three out of five judges of the Supreme Court that Tuesday ruled out legalizing same-sex marriages in India...
A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud declared that the court cannot tweak or read into the Special Marriage Act (SMA) a secular law governing inter-faith marriages to grant legal recognition to marriages between queer couples..
However, if a law, enacted following the consultation process, undermines or violates the constitutionally protected rights of an individual or a group no matter how minuscule their right to seek redressal from the top court is guaranteed under Article 32, they said.. Ordering a social institution or rearranging social structures by creating an entirely new kind of parallel framework for queer couples would require a conception of an entirely different code a new universe of rights and obligations, the judges said...
Hence, marriage has historically been a union solemnised according to customs or personal laws tracing its origin to religious texts, said Justices Bhat, Kohli, and Narasimha, while noting the diverse customary practices prevalent in India for marriages...
The Statement of Objects and Reasons of SMA clearly suggests that the sole reason for the enactment of the Act was to replace the earlier colonial era law and provide for certain new provisions; it does not refer to any specific object sought to be achieved or the reasons that necessitated the enactment of the new Act other than that it was meant to facilitate marriage between persons professing different faiths, stated the majority view...
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