Today, the Constitution bench was hearing the same-sex marriage recognition case for the fifth day where at least a bunch of 15 petitions were addressed seeking marriage equality in India. During the argument today, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta cited the US Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Dobbs v. X where it was determined that there is no constitutional right to abortion. In context to this, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said “Don’t cite Dobbs, we are far beyond it and fortunately so,” CJI further continued, “if you are relying on Dobbs to support that principle then we have gone far beyond Dobbs in India… because Dobbs represent a view of the US Supreme Court (SC) that a woman has no control over her own bodily integrity…this theory has been debunked long back in our country…so you are citing the wrong judgment in support of the principles…don’t cite Dobbs.” SG further mentioned that Dobbs judgment was cited only to support the argument on judicial powers with respect to the framing of law.
During the proceedings, CJI also remarked, “Our law granted only to a married woman the right to obtain an abortion between 20-24 weeks. We dealt with that restriction when an unmarried woman came before us and said I must have an equal right to abortion, and we held that right…We can credit ourselves that we are far ahead of our time than many of western countries.” SG further reiterated that “We have always been ahead of America or any other Western country…I am not supporting judgment on abortion rights but a debate when it concerns social implications, rerun it to people’s representative…I am citing it only for this limited purpose that this is an issue that must first be debated by Parliament…please forget the abortion part…I also don’t agree with it…your judgment on termination of pregnancy takes care of it.” The SC bench further listed the matter for hearing on April 28, 2023.
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