Same-Sex Marriage/Marriage Equality- Supreme Court Hearing- LIVE UPDATES - DAY-9

CJI DY Chandrachud: So if two people are in a live in relationship, even if they're a heterosexual couple, they wouldn't have a right to adopt?

ASG Bhati: Not under the existing law.

CJI DY Chandrachud: Is it your case that a right otherwise available to an individual to adopt a child is taken away because that individual is in a relationship other than a heterosexual marriage?

ASG Bhati: That is right.

CJI DY Chandrachud: But the means of realising that welfare are numerous- some a matter of choice, some matter of compulsion.

ASG Bhati: My endeavour is to present to your lordships that all of this is crafted together from the perspective of child being at the core.

Justice Bhat: There are situations where adoptions take place and thereafter there is biological children. There are many situations where adoption is the norm.

Justice Bhat: Even if you go back to tradition, right of a grandfather to take in adoption the son of the daughter - that is a known notion. It is a part of tradition. To say it's an exception may not be appropriate.

ASG Bhati: The law recognises from perspective of child. Your lordships have held that there is no fundamental right of adoption.

CJI DY Chandrachud: Law recognises that there may be situations apart from this "ideal family" having their own biological children. What happens during pendency of heterosexual marriage and one spouse dies?

ASG Bhati: Adoption is not an alternate to biological birth.

CJI DY Chandrachud: Law does recognise that you can adopt for a variety of reasons. You can adopt even if you're capable of biological birth. There's no compulsion of having biological birth.

ASG Bhati: From that perspective see adoption. I have given an example of sponsorship. It is available to only widowed, divorced, abandoned mothers- to seek sponsorship for their children.