Should same-sex relationships have full legal marriage rights in India?

India decriminalised consensual same-sex relationships between adults in 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. In October 2023, the same court declined to extend legal marriage rights to same-sex couples, ruling that this was a matter for Parliament to decide rather than the judiciary. As a result, same-sex couples in India today face no criminal penalty for their relationships but also have no legal marriage, adoption, or inheritance rights as couples.

The 2018 Navtej Singh Johar judgment decriminalising Section 377 was widely celebrated as a landmark for LGBTQ+ rights, recognising dignity, privacy, and non-discrimination as constitutional principles. It did not, however, address marriage.

In Supriyo v. Union of India (2023), a five-judge bench heard a batch of petitions seeking marriage equality. The court unanimously held that there is no fundamental right to marry under the Constitution and that altering the legal definition of marriage was a matter for the legislature, not the judiciary. The court did direct the government to ensure queer couples are not discriminated against in accessing goods, services, and benefits, and to consider measures like helplines and safe houses, but stopped short of granting marriage, civil union, or joint adoption rights.

• Without marriage rights, same-sex couples lack legal standing on inheritance, medical decision-making, joint bank accounts, and adoption that married couples take for granted.
• The 2018 decriminalisation already established that consensual same-sex relationships carry constitutional protection; supporters argue marriage equality is a logical next step in the same line of reasoning.
• Most large democracies that have decriminalised homosexuality have subsequently moved toward some form of legal recognition for same-sex relationships, which proponents see as the global direction of travel.

• The Supreme Court itself held that altering the legal definition of marriage is a policy choice for elected legislators, not unelected judges, a separation-of-powers argument independent of one's view on the underlying issue.
• Marriage in India is also governed by a complex web of religious personal laws; extending civil marriage rights raises drafting questions about how it would interact with those separate legal systems.
• Some social and religious conservative groups oppose recognition on grounds of tradition and religious doctrine, and argue the matter should reflect a broader societal and legislative consensus rather than court intervention.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in over 30 countries, including the United States (nationally since 2015), the United Kingdom, and South Africa, the only African country to have legalised it. Nepal, India's neighbour, began registering same-sex marriages following a 2023 interim Supreme Court order, making it the first South Asian country to do so. Taiwan was the first in Asia to legalise it nationally, in 2019. India's current position, decriminalised but not legally recognised, places it alongside a large group of countries in an intermediate stage rather than at either end of the spectrum.

The central government opposed marriage equality petitions in court, arguing it was a matter for Parliament and reflected a policy choice rather than a constitutional right. No major national party has made marriage equality a prominent legislative priority since the 2023 verdict. LGBTQ+ rights organisations and some opposition politicians have continued to call for legislative action, but the issue has not become a defining axis of party competition the way it has in some other democracies.

This question sits mainly on the Tradition axis, reflecting attitudes toward changing social and family norms, with a secondary Authority axis component around the state's role in defining personal relationships.