NEW DELHI: India’s top court refused on Tuesday to legalise same-sex marriages but said the country had a duty to acknowledge LGBTQ relationships and to protect them from discrimination.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has opposed moves to legally codify same-sex partnerships in the five years since the Supreme Court struck down colonial-era laws banning gay sex.

Lawyers for several same-sex couples urged the court earlier this year to grant their relationships full legal recognition, but the five-member bench ruled that extending marriage equality was a parliamentary decision.

“It lies within the domain of parliament and state legislatures to determine the law on marriage,” Supreme Court Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud said during his verdict.

The court’s ruling held that the fundamental right to marriage for same-sex couples was not guaranteed by India’s constitution under existing law.

It did grant marriage rights to couples where one or both members were transgender, provided one participant in the union identified as a man and the other as a woman.

Chandrachud added that India still had a duty to acknowledge same-sex relationships and protect those in them from discrimination. “Our ability to feel love and affection for one another makes us feel human,” he said from the bench.

“This court has recognised that equality demands that queer unions and queer persons are not discriminated against.” The court’s ruling directed the government to form a committee that would determine the scope of rights for same-sex couples in the future, without compelling government recognition.

Its verdict was greeted with sadness and disappointment by a crowd gathered outside the court who had hoped to celebrate India becoming the second Asian jurisdiction after Taiwan to legalise same-sex marriages.

“We are not satisfied with whatever the court has said”, Siddhant Kumar, 27, said.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2023