Zoya Mateen
Reporting from Delhi

Archit Dutt was 14 when he first tried coming out to his family as gay. But they immediately rejected him and, afraid of being abandoned, he pretended to be heterosexual.

He took refuge in films, mostly foreign productions on LGBTQ+ lives. “But I always wondered why there wasn't enough mainstream representation for people like us in India.”

Now a 20-year-old student of English literature - and an aspiring make-up artist - he lives in Delhi, away from his family who still don’t know he’s gay.

But he hopes that the Supreme Court’s order might help change that.

“On the upside, it will finally shatter the moulds we are constantly forced into.” If it’s unfavourable, then “our lives would be pushed back by a century”, he adds.

“Either way, I will always love my parents, even though I don’t know if they’ll ever accept me for who I am.”

By Gagandeep Singh Jassowal
BBC News Punjabi

While couples like Dr Arora and Ms Khanna are waiting for law to allow them to get married, others like Dimple and Manisha in Punjab decided to tie the knot anyway.

Dimple, 27 - who uses the pronoun he - and Manisha, 21, married in Bathinda city on 18 September with the blessings of their families - something that's highly unusual in a conservative country like India.

They got married in a gurdwara - a Sikh temple - and performed all traditional rituals, despite criticism from religious leaders.

Click here to read their story.

Geeta Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

Dr Kavita Arora and Ankita Khanna, a same-sex couple who've been waiting for years to tie the knot, will be keenly watching the top court’s proceedings today.

They are among the couples and activists who have petitioned the Supreme Court. For the women, it wasn't love at first sight. They first became co-workers, then friends, and then came love.

Their families and friends readily accepted their relationship, but 17 years after they met and more than a decade after they started living together, the mental health professionals say they are unable to marry - "something most couples aspire to". To read their story, click here

Image source, Ankita and Kavita

Geeta Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

In the court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued for the government that the right to love and cohabit was a fundamental right, but marriage itself was "not an absolute right" - not even among heterosexual couples.

Pointing out that there was a list of prohibited relationships, such as those involving incest, Mr Mehta asked the court "to visualise a situation in which five years down the line" a person comes seeking the right to marry a sibling.

"Incest is not uncommon in the world and it is prohibited everywhere," he said, adding that arguments of right to choice and sexual autonomy raised by the same-sex petitioners may be used to defend incest at a later date.

Read more here

Zoya Mateen
Reporting from Delhi

Chaitanya Sharma and Abhishek Ray, a gay couple in Delhi who held a marriage ceremony last year, are hopeful about the upcoming verdict.

“The prospect of our marriage being officially acknowledged, with rights such as inheritance, social benefits, and healthcare access, fills us with profound joy,” they say.

If the court legalises same-sex marriages, it would send a powerful message that love is universal and promote greater social acceptance and understanding, the couple add.

“For us, it would be a validation of our love, bringing us closer to a more equal future.”

Image source, Owais Khan

Pride parades in India are celebrated with much fanfare today. But the story was quite different a little over two decades ago when the country’s first pride walk was organised in West Bengal.

It was held on 2 July 1999 in pouring rain and only 15 people showed up. The marchers called it “friendship walk” to avoid trouble as homosexuality was criminal in India at the time.

After the walk, the marchers visited non-governmental organisations and the state's Human Rights Commission to distribute information brochures about gay rights.

Read more about that historic day here.

If the Supreme Court legalises same-sex marriages, India will become one among around 35 countries to have done so. The Netherlands was the first to do this way back in 2001.

In Asia, Taiwan was the first place to recognise same-sex marriages in 2019. It also gives same-sex couples limited adoption rights.

In June, Nepal’s Supreme Court directed the government to register unions of same-sex couples - but this much-praised decision has hit a legal roadblock as couples say they are facing pushback from lower courts.

Read more here about the struggles faced by Nepal's same-sex couples

Zoya Mateen
Reporting from Delhi

Excited, hopeful - but also scared.

That’s what Rushati Mukherjee, a freelance journalist in Kolkata city (formerly Calcutta), feels as they wait for the verdict.

“Marriage equality matters enormously to me. There are so many legal and financial rights built into our systems for married people. I deserve access to those rights,” they told the BBC.

The 28-year-old says they even considered moving to another country so that they can envision leading life with a loved one.

“This matters more than I initially let myself realise because I didn't want to get my hopes up only to have them crushed,” they say.

“That will be a special kind of heartbreak."

Anshul Verma
Reporting from Delhi

“Has it been six years or seven?”

“Neither. It’s six-and-a-half.”

That’s how long Vivek and Vishwa, a gay couple in Delhi, have been living together, happily married.

Their ceremony was a private low-key affair with few guests in attendance.

It has no legal status in India at the moment. But the couple, along with their families, hope that will change soon with a favourable Supreme Court judgement.

Devang Shah
Reporting from the Supreme Court

It's a bright and slightly nippy morning in Delhi and my colleague Anshul Verma and I are outside the Supreme Court. We are just a couple of hours away from what could be a historic day for India's LGBTQ+ community.

It's still quiet here at the moment - a few reporters and camera people are setting up their equipment to capture all the action.

The petitioners aren't here yet - but things should get busy really soon.

Stay with us as we bring you all the colour from here!

Vikas Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

The Indian government has argued in the court that the people arguing for marriage equality "are all elites".

It's also commonly believed that India will be "more like the West" if it allows same-sex marriages.

But is it true?

Not entirely, some of India's prominent historians and mythology experts offer differing views. In this piece from 2018 - when India's top court had legalised gay sex between consenting adults - they told the BBC that India had the "tradition of celebrating love in every form".

Click here to read more.

Image source, Getty Images

Geeta Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

Image source, Getty Images

Acceptance of homosexuality has grown in India over the years. A Pew survey in 2020, external had 37% people saying it should be accepted - a jump from 15% in 2014, the first time the question was asked in the country.

Their most recent survey, external, published in June, shows that support has risen further, with 53% adults saying same-sex marriage should be legal.

The change in attitudes is a result of decades of activism and shifts in opinion across religions, regions and demographic groups.

But activists say attitudes to sex and sexuality remain largely conservative and most LGBTQ+ people are afraid to come out, even to their friends and family, and attacks on same-sex couples routinely make headlines.

Divya Arya
BBC World Service

Some petitioners say a positive judgement would save them from the brutal physical and mental violence inflicted on them by their own families.

Earlier this year, the BBC's Divya Arya spoke to Manoj and Rashmi (names changed) who say that legal recognition of their relationship would be the "only way out of this life of fear".

At 17, Manoj - who was recorded female sex at birth - told his family that he felt like a man and loved a woman. He says he almost got killed.

Read their story here to find out why they joined this legal fight

Image source, Getty Images

On the other side are people who insist that a marriage can take place only between a man and a woman who are heterosexual.

Leaders from all of India's main religions - Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh and Christian - have opposed same sex union, external, with many insisting that marriage "is for procreation, not recreation".

Among others who have weighed in have been 21 retired high court judges who wrote an open letter, external saying allowing same-sex marriage would have a "devastating impact on children, family and society".

It could increase incidence of HIV-Aids in India, they added, and expressed concern that it could "negatively affect the psychological and emotional development of children raised by same-sex couples".

Image source, Getty Images

Zoya Mateen
Reporting from Delhi

While the LGBTQ+ community in recent years has received support from activists, allies and parents, the movement - and especially the issue of legalising same-sex marriage - finds little resonance among India’s political parties.

Only two of them - the Communist Party of India and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) of West Bengal state - have openly supported, external marriage equality.

“Love has no religion, no boundaries, no limit. We take pride in the diversity that unites India,” TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee said a few months back.

Some other politicians such as Brinda Karat - a former member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - and MPs Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari from the main opposition Congress party have said they support same-sex unions in their personal capacity. But their parties have not officially endorsed their stand.

Image source, Getty Images

The petitioners’ fight has received a major boost from the Indian Psychiatric Society(IPS) - the country's leading mental health group which represents more than 7,000 psychiatrists.

As the court hearings started, the IPS issued a statement saying “homosexuality is not a disease". It also added that discrimination against LGBTQ+ people could "lead to mental health issues in them".

The IPS statement carries some weight - a similar statement from them supporting decriminalising gay sex in 2018 had been referred to by the Supreme Court in its landmark judgement then.

Zoya Mateen
Reporting from Delhi

For Prashant (not his real name), a 27-year-old gay man who is a public health consultant in Delhi, the verdict doesn’t hold any immediate value.

“I am still young and wouldn’t want to be bound by such a patriarchal institution,” he says.

But what matters to him is that as an equal citizen of the country he too deserves to be “unrestricted by the constraints of who I choose to love”.

"A favourable verdict would mean greater acceptance for us and hopefully normalise the idea of being LGBTQ+,” he says, calling it a step towards equality.

“But more than anything, it might also finally ease the process for me coming out to my family.”

The petitioners have faced stiff resistance from the government - Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who’s representing the authorities, has insisted that law-making is the domain of the parliament.

The government has also argued that same-sex marriage is not compatible with the Indian concept of a family unit, saying it only has place for a husband, a wife and children.

The government viewpoint has found support from religious leaders, with all of India's main religions - Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh and Christian - also opposing same sex union, external.

Among the petitioners are Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang, a couple who’ve been together for over a decade and held a two-day wedding ceremony in 2021.

Another couple, Parth Phiroze Mehrotra and Uday Raj Anand, have been together for 17 years and raised two children.

A third petition is filed by a couple - an Indian and an American citizen - who got married in the US in 2014 and now want to register their wedding in India under the Foreign Marriage Act.

At the top of the table are the justices.

The five-judge constitution bench has heard a batch of 21 petitions, filed by activists and same-sex couples. They are pitted against India’s federal government, which has strongly opposed their plea.