‘If Five Wise Men Decide Something…’: Kiren Rijiju On Same-Sex Marriage

Union law minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday reiterated his stand on the Supreme Court hearing the issue of same-sex marriage and said that courts are not the forum to settle such issues.

The comment comes as the Union government on Wednesday urged the Apex Court to leave the issue of the legality of the non-heterosexual forms of unions to Parliament. “If five wise men decide something which is correct according to them, I cannot make any kind of adverse comments against them. But if people don’t want it, you can’t impose things on people,” Rijiju said speaking at Republic Summit.

“And a sensitive and important matter like the institution of marriage has to be decided by the people of the country. Supreme Court, definitely, has the power to issue certain directions; under Section 142, they can make law also, and if there are some vacuums they can fill them but when it comes to a matter which affects every citizen of the country, then Supreme Court is not the forum,” Rijiju said.

“I don’t want to make it a government versus judiciary, absolutely not. This is not at all a matter between the court and the government. It is a matter which concerns every citizen of India. It is a question of people’s will. The will of the people is reflected in Parliament, legislature, Assemblies — in different forums where we have elected people,” the law minister said. Earlier too, the minister emphasised that the issue does not belong to the Supreme Court.

Amid the ongoing Executive vs Judiciary under Kiren Rijiju, the minister said, “Constitution does not provide judges to be elected, they don’t sit in exams to be a judge. But we all are under the scrutiny of people’s assessment. Even though there is no mechanism to change a judge, there is no system of accountability of the judges, I said that people are watching everyone in the age of social media.”

On the lakshamrekha between the Executive and Judiciary, Rijiju said, “The Modi government never crossed the lakshmanrekha. But it was crossed earlier when there was a mass transfer of judges, when seniority was superseded. We will be very mindful that we remain completely guided by the spirit of the Constitution. But I expect the same from the Judiciary. We did not get into each other’s territory. There’s no question of tussle if we confine ourselves within our constitutional role. All judges are very comfortable with me. They know that my intentions in very clean. The objective of our government is very clear.”

“The fissures you see are artificially created by certain people about whom I have talked in past,” the law minister said.