The Court’s judgment in Supriyo v Union of India (2023), especially after the ruling in Navtej Johar v Union of India (2018), fails to uphold the baseline of a decent society with dignity for queers. By mis-framing the issue, misapplying precedents and deferring to majoritarian heteronormative morality, the Court reinforced institutional humiliation. The Court’s stand on protecting homosexual identity but only as long as it is not openly performed reduces homosexuals to a suspect category, compelling them to take on practices of covering their identity, limiting their experience as full citizens. 

The Supreme Court of India, in Supriyo v Union of India1 (2023)(hereafter Supriyo), rejected the writ petition of the queer persons’ right to marry through the route of allowing marriage for them under the Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954. The bench unanimously held that the right to marry cannot be read as a fundamental right.The bench in a 3:2 division further refused to recognise the right of civil union as a substitute for marriage for queer persons. This judgment was a backsliding setback for the queer community, as it failed to consolidate on the gains made in Navtej Johar v Union of India2 (2018)(hereafter Navtej) that decriminalised Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, which penalised consensual same-sex relationships. 

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