A five-judge Supreme Court bench on Thursday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking the review of the apex court’s October 17, 2023, judgment which had ruled that the LGBT community has no fundamental right to marriage.
A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai, Surya Kant, B.V. Nagarathna, P.S. Narasimha
and Dipankar Datta, by a 5:0 majority, refused to interfere with the earlier constitution bench verdict.
On October 17, 2023, the earlier bench had by a 3:2 majority ruled that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community has no fundamental or statutory right to marry and any such right can be conferred only by Parliament and not by courts through judicial interpretation of the various statutes.
The majority also overruled the minority opinion that members of the community have a right to adoption like heterosexual couples or parents.
However, the then bench by a unanimous majority had asked the Centre to expedite the process of providing legal entitlements like provident fund and pension to members of the community as per their entitlements.