Same Sex Marriage- Supreme Court Constitution Bench Hearing-DAY-2- LIVE UPDATES
Rohatgi: If one man's fundamental right is affected, he has a right to come to this court.
Rohatgi: I don't have a voice before the parliament. I have a voice here.
Rohatgi: 32 itself is a fundamental right. If I have a right and that right is being clouded by the majority or by the state accepting the majority as correct, I have a right to come to this court and this court will fail its duty if it fails to remedy it & says go to parliament
Rohatgi: Sometimes the law takes the lead, sometimes the society takes the lead. The power, jurisdiction, obligation, and responsibility of this court is only cast on this court. Even the HC doesn't have that power- as the final protector of FRs
Justice Kaul: This is a double edged sword. Because the argument of the other side is that the parliament will do it when society is ready.
Rohatgi: Prior to the Hindu Marriage Act, a Hindu could marry three times. That became an anathema when India progressed with Hindu Marriage Act.
Rohatgi: Then it came in a truncated manner. First the Hindu Marriage Act, then succession act, then adoption, guardianship - all of them came after. So what was not accepted in 1950 was accepted in 1956, and then became the norm of the society.
Rohatgi: When the Hindu Code came, parliament wasn't ready. The Hindu Code wasn't just Hindu Marriage Act, it had adoption, succession - so many things. It wasn't accepted. Dr Ambedkar had to resign.
Rohatgi: British period stuck because they made the laws. They conquered the land. Those laws were imposed on us. That is how shifting sands of time changed us.
Rohatgi: Our morality was very different, far more advanced, not victorian, not stereotyped, not stigmatised in this form! But then it changed.