Queer students’ groups representing law universities across the country on Thursday condemned the Bar Council of India (BCI) for its recent resolution urging the Supreme Court to desist from deciding on legalising same-sex marriage and instead allow Parliament to take a call.

In a joint statement, the groups noted that the BCI should confine its role to regulating legal education and practice instead of passing resolutions on matters which are sub judice.

“The resolution is ignorant, harmful and antithetical to our Constitution and the spirit of inclusive social life. It attempts to tell queer persons that the law and the legal profession have no place for them,” the statement said.

“As future members of the Bar, it has been alienating and hurtful to see our seniors engage in such hateful rhetoric. Many of us remember the feeling that we had when Navtej Singh Johar (decriminalisation of IPC Section 377) was decided: an intimately unforgettable affirmation of the law’s emancipatory, liberatory and transformative potential.

“The BCI ought to respect the letter and spirit of the Advocates Act, 1961, which clearly defines the body’s mandate based on its regulatory function. Nothing in the Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, empowers the BCI to pass comments on sub judice matters. The passing of this resolution is entirely unwarranted and a deplorable attempt by the BCI to illegitimately create influence for itself,” the statement said.

The students’ groups said they were most troubled by the BCI’s “stunning disregard for constitutional morality”.

The signatories said: “Our Constitution is a counterweight to majoritarianism, religious morality and unjust public opinion. Constitutional morality dictates that marriage equality must not be made subject to the wishes of a casteist, cis-heteronormative and patriarchal society. It is to save people from the worst scourges of public opinion that we have a Constitution, in the first place.”