A gay couple in Delhi exchanged rings in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, a day after the top court refused to legalise same-sex marriages but said the country had a duty to acknowledge LGBTQ relationships and to protect them from discrimination. Their photo has won over the internet, with congratulations pouring in for the couple.
“Yesterday hurt. Today, @utkarsh__saxena and I went back to the court that denied our rights and exchanged rings. So this week wasn't about a legal loss, but our engagement. We'll return to fight another day,” Ananya Kotia, a PhD student at the London School of Economics, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Yesterday hurt. Today, @utkarsh__saxena and I went back to the court that denied our rights, and exchanged rings. So this week wasn't about a legal loss, but our engagement. We'll return to fight another day. pic.twitter.com/ALJFIhgQ5I— Kotia (@AnanyaKotia) October 18, 2023
A large number of X users hit "like" on the post and congratulated the couple.
Kotia’s partner, Utkash Saxena, is a Supreme Court lawyer, a development economist and a petitioner for the right to same-sex marriage in India.
The couple first met in college when Kotia had gone to audtion for the debating society. He was in the first year at that time and Saxena was in his third year.
“We were both a bit nerdy, geeky, we were into politics, news, current affairs. That’s how we started bonding and immediately realised that what we had was something quite special. I had never experienced this before, he had never experienced this before,” Saxena had told Moneycontrol earlier this year.
“The first time we admitted to someone that we were queer, gay was to each other.”
Lawyers for several same-sex couples urged the court earlier this year to grant their relationships full legal recognition, but the five-member Supreme Court bench, led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, ruled that extending marriage equality was a parliamentary decision.
"It lies within the domain of parliament and state legislatures to determine the law on marriage," Supreme Court Chief Justice Chandrachud said during the verdict.
A landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2018 struck down the British colonial-era law criminalising gay sex, and last year the court ruled that unmarried partners or same-sex couples were entitled to welfare benefits.
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