Same Sex Marriage- Supreme Court Constitution Bench Hearing-DAY-2- LIVE UPDATES

CJI Chandrachud: Before Justice Narasimha and me- this part where female should be 18 was challenged by Ashwini Upadhyay and we dismissed the petition stating that if we hold that unconstitutional there'll be no minimum age of marriage.

Rohatgi: Yes because there are different ages- 18 and 21. There is a proposed bill to increase 18 to 21. There is already a bill. The moment 18 becomes 21 for women...

Justice Kohli: How will you read it, if it is read as "person"?

Rohatgi: If you read it as a person, it will give a dual age. What will be 18, what will be 21?

Justice Bhat: So for main part you want it to be gender neutral but for Part C you want to retain male and female.

Justice Kaul: I was telling my brother that the relation I just saw is sister's daughter but in many communities it is almost an intrinsic right to... we're such a varied country.

Rohatgi: To conform to the constitutional declaration, it has to be this. Otherwise this will become unconstitutional if the declaration is granted. We don't want it to be unconstitutional. We want to utilise it.

CJI DY Chandrachud: But this is also a tacit indication that the SMA did not contemplate people of same sex getting married.

Rohatgi discusses provisions of SMA.

J Kohli: What you want to read it as is instead of a man, read it as person.

CJI: According to you, if two men are getting married, it's not just Part 1 which will apply and if two women are getting married, it's not just Part 2 will apply.

Rohatgi: I am saying that legislative tool maybe good when we're discussing a normal law. But today we're discussing a constitutional provision and if a constitutional declaration is granted, all laws are subservient to the constitution - so they must then be read in conformity

Rohatgi: I am not invoking a new basis. The basis already exists. It's already the law of the land. But it stopped at decriminalization because that was the issue then.

Rohatgi: Nobody can deny a full and equal citizenship- it can't be sans marriage, sans family, sans the respect of a marriage, and we'll forever be treated as those people.