SC Notice on Homosexuals
The Telegraph,
April 2, 2005
Calcutta, India
By Our Legal Correspondent
NEW DELHI (APRIL 1)—The Supreme
Court today issued a notice to the Centre on a petition seeking to legalise
homosexuality, which could also pave the way for recognition of homosexual
marriages.
A division bench of Justices Y.K. Sabharwal and P.P.
Naolekar issued the notice to the Centre asking it why Section 377 of the
Indian Penal Code should not be amended to accord legal status to homosexuals
or whether the provision should be scrapped from the statute book.
This section defines “unnatural offences” relating to
sex and provides 10 years’ jail term to those who have “intercourse
against the order of the nature”, including “carnal intercourse” with
“any man, woman or animal”. The provision also imposes a fine.
Delhi High Court had on September 2, 2004, rejected a
similar petition by a non-government organisation, the Naz Foundation, which
has now moved the apex court.
A Kerala-based body, the Joint Action Council Kannur
(JACK), had opposed giving legal status to homosexuals, especially in the wake
of the “AIDS danger”, and on the grounds that it was against the “order
of nature”.
The high court had pointed out that the Naz Foundation as
a body was not affected by the law. “No one who is not directly affected by
a law can raise a question of the constitutionality of that law,” it said.
The Union ministries of health, social welfare and home,
the National AIDS Control Organisation and the Delhi State AIDS Control
Society have also opposed the petition.
A counsel for JACK, Ravi Shankar Kumar, had argued that
health being a subject of public policy of the government, the Centre and
states were empowered under the Constitution to take preventive methods
against AIDS and any practice, including homosexuality, having the potential
to spread the virus.
The high court had, however, declined to comment on the
merit of the case. “This court does not express any opinion when nobody is
really aggrieved and does not examine merely academically” the issue of
granting legal status to homosexuals.
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