Supreme Court to reconsider ruling to make homosexuality illegal

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hold an unprecedented, open-court reconsideration of a controversial ruling by it that upheld the validity of a Victorian-era law that makes homosexuality illegal.

The case will be heard by a bench led by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur starting February 2.

The earlier judgement by Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhyaya had raised the hackles of the LGBT community and civil liberties activists.

A review petition had also been dismissed, prompting NGO Naz Foundation, which works among the community, to file a curative petition.

This is the last legal option for any litigant in the country’s top court. Any such petition has to be vetted by leading senior advocates of the top court and is examined threadbare by a bench comprising four other top judges of the court.

Attempts by activists to have a law passed in Parliament to undo the ruling didn’t succeed.

The Delhi High Court had raised hopes among activists when it had read down Section 377, IPC, to exclude adult consensual sex from its ambit.

It restricted this to being used to deal with child sexual abuse and other sexual offences of a more violent nature.

However, the top court set aside the high court judgement and said that it cannot change the law to keep pace with the times. Instead, the top court lobbed the issue back into the parliamentary domain and asked activists praying for a change in law to approach lawmakers.

Activists are citing changes in laws all over the world to recognize the rights of the LGBT community. They also say that ancient India didn’t frown upon homosexuality.

The Naz Foundation case will be argued by senior advocate Anand Grover.