Same Sex Marriage- Supreme Court Constitution Bench Hearing- DAY-3 LIVE UPDATES

CJI DY Chandrachud: We've never seen ourselves as bound by the original interpretation of the constitution. So then should we be bound by the original interpretation of a statute?

CJI DY Chandrachud: We're expanding the meaning of the statute in the context of constitutional guarantees. And in that you're saying be liberated from the bare text of the constitution.

CJI DY Chandrachud: In a way, what happened in UK is not the same as India. The HRA in UK was to enforce treaty obligations under ECHR. For us, we've always had the overarching principles of constitution which is above.

CJI DY Chandrachud: Or has the law now progressed sufficiently to contemplate that the existence of binary genders, may be, but is not necessary for definition of marriage.

Singhvi: To that comes the intersection of Article 14.

CJI DY Chandrachud: It requires us to redefine the evolving notion of marriage. Because is the existence of two spouses who belong to a binary gender a necessary requirement for marriage?

CJI DY Chandrachud: Once we've crossed that, we have to see if we can recognise marriages, not marriage like relationship.

CJI DY Chandrachud: So we see these relationships not just as physical relations but something more of a stable, emotional relationship.

CJI : Looking at India, constitutionally and socially as well, we've already reached the intermediate stage. The intermediate stage postulates that by decriminalizing homosexuality, you contemplate that people who belong to the same sex would be in stable marriage like relations.

CJI DY Chandrachud: So long as straddle that line which divides policy from the judicial process, you're still in the fold of...

CJI DY Chandrachud: And from the perspective of institutional capacity, we have to ask ourselves whether we would be doing something which is fundamentally contrary to the scheme of the statute.