Same sex Marriage : Law students criticise BCI’s regressive statement

More than 600 law students from over 30 LGBTQIA+ collectives throughout India have slammed the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) regressive stance against the Supreme Court’s hearing on marriage equality.

“We condemn the BCI’s statement as queerphobic, regressive, and hegemonic and seek to raise awareness about the importance of recognizing and upholding the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals in India,” the collectives said in a press statement. On April 23, 2023, the Bar Council of India (‘BCI’) passed a resolution on the ongoing marriage equality petitions, urging the Supreme Court to abdicate its role and defer the matter to the Parliament instead.

“We, the undersigned, are queer and allied student groups across Indian law schools. As future members of the Bar, it has been alienating and hurtful to see our seniors engage in such hateful rhetoric. Many of us remember the feeling that we had when Navtej Singh Johar was decided: an intimately unforgettable affirmation of the law’s emancipatory, liberatory, and transformative potential. It is in this spirit that we write this statement of condemnation and solidarity,” the statement said.

The statement said that the BCI ought to respect the letter and spirit of the Advocates Act, 1961, which clearly defines the body’s mandate based on its regulatory function. Nothing in the Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, empowers the BCI to pass comments on sub judice matters.The passing of this Resolution is entirely unwarranted and a deplorable attempt by the BCI to illegitimately create influence for itself.

“The ongoing case concerns the recognition of fundamental rights (to equality, freedom, and privacy) that queer persons already have under the Constitution. The BCI denies any role of fundamental rights in its Resolution, instead characterising marriage equality as a political decision. This shows their heinous indifference towards the reality of queer and trans persons living as second-class citizens in our country. Consequently, the BCI completely misses that fundamental rights cannot be made to suffer from the inaction of the legislature,” the collective said.

“We are most troubled by the BCI’s stunning disregard for constitutional morality. Our Constitution is a counterweight to majoritarianism, religious morality, and unjust public opinion. Constitutional morality dictates that marriage equality must not be made subject to the wishes of a casteist, cis-heteronormative, and patriarchal society,” read the statement.