NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has said it may be redefining the evolving notion of marriage as the next step after decriminalising consensual homosexual relationships which implicitly recognised that same-sex people could live in a stable marriage-like relationship.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, which is hearing a batch of petitions seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriage, did not agree to the contention that unlike heterosexuals same-sex couples cannot take proper care of their children.
The CJI referred to instances of alcohol abuse by heterosexuals in families and the adverse impact it has on children. He said he did not agree to the submission even at the risk of getting trolled. Even at the risk of getting trolled, but now this has become the name of the game for the judges to confront. Answers what we say in the court are in the troll and not in the court you know, the CJI said.
What happens when there is a heterosexual couple and when the child sees domestic violence? Will that child grow up in a normal atmosphere? Of a father becoming an alcoholic, coming home and thrashing the mother every night and asking for money for alcohol? he said.
During the day-long hearing in the matter on April 20 for the third day on the trot, the bench pondered over whether the relationship between a man and a woman is so fundamental to the Special Marriage Act that substituting them with term spouses will amount to redoing the legislation.
