SC bench refers petition of LGBT celebrities to chief justice

NEW DELHI: A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday referred a petition filed by five LGBT celebrities seeking to legalise gay sex to Chief Justice of

NEW DELHI: A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday referred a petition filed by five LGBT celebrities seeking to legalise gay sex to Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur for “appropriate orders”, saying a similar matter was already pending before a constitution bench.

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On behalf of the LGBT celebs — chef Ritu Dalmia, hotelier Aman Nath, dancer NS Johar, journalist Sunil Mehra and business executive Ayesha Kapur — senior advocate Arvind Datar contended it was the first time that the affected people themselves approached the court against the colonial era law that criminalised homosexuality.

A bench of justice SA Bobde and justice Ashok Bhushan said the matter was already pending before a constitution bench and referred it to CJI Thakur. In their petition, the celebs contended that “despite our achievements and contributions to India in various fields, we are being denied the right to sexuality, the most basic and inherent of fundamental rights”.

The CJI will decide if the fresh petition could to be taken up along with other curative petitions already pending on the issue that was sent to a constitution bench in February this year.

The Supreme Court had in December 2013 reversed a Delhi high court verdict that de-criminalised consensual homosexual acts between consenting adults in private, leaving the community vulnerable to violence and police action. The high court in July 2009 had declared unconstitutional a part of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises unnatural sex, saying “the section denies a gay person a right to full personhood…”

Section 377 of the IPC — which criminalises “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” — prescribes life imprisonment as punishment. While overturning the high court’s order, the Supreme Court left it to the Parliament to take the final call on the controversial law.