A participant waves a flag during Queer Azadi Pride, an event promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, in Mumbai, India on Feb 1, 2020.NEW DELHI - Court appeals in India to legalise same-sex marriage are "urban elitist views", the government has said in a new court document that seeks the dismissal of the challenge and says that parliament is the right platform to debate the matter.
"The petitions, which merely reflect urban elitist views, cannot be compared with the appropriate legislature which reflects the views and voices of far wider spectrum and expands across the country," the government said in a filing to the Supreme Court on Sunday and seen by Reuters. A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud will be hearing the case from Tuesday and it will be live-streamed on the court website and on YouTube. The country's highest court decriminalised homosexuality in 2018 by scrapping a colonial-era ban on gay sex.