Section 377: Govt tells SC it will let court decide on decriminalising gay sex
Supreme Court
The court had on Tuesday begun hearing a clutch of petitions against Section 377, which says homosexuality is a crime.
The Centre has told the Supreme Court it will let the court decide whether or not to decriminalise gay sex.
The court had on Tuesday begun hearing a clutch of petitions against Section 377, which says homosexuality is a crime.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Wednesday told the five-judge constitution bench hearing the petitions that the government would leave the constitutionalityof Section 377 to the court.
"We leave validity of Section 377, so far as it relates to consensual acts between two adults, to wisdom of court," PTI quoted Mehta as saying.
The court said it intended to rule, subject to arguments, that two consenting adults, even if engaged in "unnatural sex", will not be liable for prosecution.
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The Centre in turn urged the court not to deal with issues like gay marriage, and property and inheritance rights for that would have several repercussions.
Section 377 had been struck down by the Delhi High Court in 2009. The court called it "unconstitutional".
But the judgement was set aside by the Supreme Court in 2013, which said the onus to change the law lay with Parliament.
In January this year, the country's top court agreed to hear a clutch of petitions which said the law had led to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
On Tuesday, the petitioners' counsel, Mukul Rohatgi, told the court that "as society changes, values change". And that "what was moral 160 years ago might not be moral today."