New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear in open court on February 2 the curative petition filed by gay activists and Naz Foundation seeking to cure the defects in the judgment upholding the validity of Section 377 IPC insofar as it recriminalises homosexuality between two consenting adults on the ground that there was no constitutional infirmity in this provision.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur will hear the curative petition which is normally heard in the chambers of the senior judge. This gives fresh hope to gay activists fighting for rights.
The apex court had upheld the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalizes same-sex intercourse with up to 10 years of imprisonment.
After the verdict, the LGBT community has received support from several quarters. Political parties, including the Congress and CPM, included the matter of their rights in their national manifestos.
The curative petition challenges both the December 11, 2013 judgment and the January 2014 order in the review petitions to cure the gross miscarriage of justice.
It said, “The effect of recriminalisation on account of the impugned judgment has caused immense prejudice to gay activists, who have been put at risk of prosecution under Section 377 IPC, on account of the association between homosexuality and penile-anal/penile-oral sexual acts.”
The petitioner drew the court’s attention to the fact that under an amendment introduced in the IPC in 2013, Sec. 375 of the IPC in 2013 makes penile non-vaginal sexual acts, between man and woman, without consent an offence.
By necessary implication, such sexual acts between man and woman, which are consensual, are no longer prohibited.
