Same-sex marriage: Panel to be formed to address problems of India's gay community, Centre tells SC

As we entered the seventh day of the same-sex hearings in the Supreme Court, the Centre on Wednesday told the Constitution Bench that a panel would be formed to look into the problems faced by the gay community, assuring the court of a positive approach in this regard.

On Wednesday, the five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India, D.Y Chandrachud continued the hearings centred around marriage equality, and gender rights. The bench listened in Court 1, as the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta informed them of the Centre's latest decision in the ongoing chain of events. Mehta told the bench that the new panel would be headed by the Cabinet Secretary and explore all possible administrative possibilities to address the concerns of same-sex couples.

SG Mehta further added, "My friends can give me the suggestions or the problems which they're facing, which the committee will go into and will try and see that so far as legally permissible, they are addressed," referring to the opposing counsel.

Beseech both sides to work together

Chief Justice of India, D.Y Chandrachud who was presiding over the hearings and listening, intervened to suggest to the Solicitor General to have an informal meeting with the petitioner's counsels, later in the week to discuss this new development and the Centre's panel. To beseech both sides to work together, CJI Chandrachud went on to name the counsels one by one.

In response to this, Senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the petitioners told the court that having a meeting wasn't a problem, neither was offering up suggestions to which the new panel would apply their minds, as the Solicitor General had invited the petitioners to offer. As the opposing counself, Singhvi asserted that at the end of the day, this latest move was at best mere administrative tweaking, while legal tweaking was different matter altogether.

In addition to this, offering up the final word, Advocate Singhvi said, "Personally, I don't think your lordships will have any major solution. Having seen the gamut of problems, it is better that your lordships spend time to get to a solution". As a afternote, he added that he still welocmed this development, saying that "This can be in addition though".