India Court Declines Legalizing Same-sex Marriage

India’s top court has on Tuesday declined  to legalize same-sex marriages but said the country had a duty to acknowledge LGBTQ relationships and to protect them from discrimination.

Advocates representing nearly two dozen petitioners said it was time for India to treat the country’s LGBTQ community as equal citizens under its constitution.

But their verdict said that the charter did not guarantee a fundamental right to marriage that would extend to same-sex couples under existing law.

But the India Supreme Court Chief Justice D.Y Chandrachud said during his verdict, that India still had a duty to acknowledge same-sex relationships and protect those in them from discrimination.