Giving a ray of hope to gay rights activists, the Supreme Court will on Monday conduct an open court hearing to reconsider its order criminalising homosexuality and sexual relations between same sex partners.
With the demand to scrap Section 377 of Indian Penal Code penalising unnatural sexual acts (including partners of same sex) being raised by gay rights activists to eliminate large scale discrimination and ill-treatment meted out to lesbian, gay, bisexuals and transgender (lGBT) community, the curative petition provided the last ray of hope. On December 11, 2013, the Supreme Court set aside a Delhi High Court order that decriminalised Section 377. The apex court left it to the Centre to decide amending the law.
A review petition challenging this order was also dismissed by the apex court in January 2014. This left the petitioners including NGO Naz Foundation and several individuals and organisations supporting homosexuality to file a curative petition, pending for last two years.
While curative petitions are generally heard and decided in chambers, the bench headed by the Chief Justice TS Thakur has stepped out from the routine procedure and chosen to hear the matter in open court. This will not only provide lawyers appearing in the case on both sides to argue their point. In addition, it will also aid the NDA Government, which of late has backed decriminalising IPC Section 377, to openly state its stand.
Claiming fundamental rights for the lGBT community, the curative petitions challenged the past two orders delivered by the SC for failing to ensure right to sexual freedom of the lGBT, considered a minority in the society. Former law Commission Chairman AP Shah too came out against the SC order at a public lecture recently pointing out the fallacies in the December 11 judgment. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in a public speech had supported the fact that when the SC recognised transgenders as the third sex, the judgment on Section 377 needed a relook.