Apex court seeks centre's stand on homosexuality

New Delhi, July 9 : The Supreme Court Thursday sought the respective stands of the union and the Delhi governments on a lawsuit challenging a Delhi High Court verdict legalizing consensual homosexuality in private and partly scrapping the penal provisions against it framed during the British Raj.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan issued notices to the two governments, besides seven others, including NGO Naz foundation which had originally moved Delhi High Court to scrap the penal provision against homosexuality, seeking their respective stands.

The bench, which also included Justice P. Sathasivam, issued notices on a lawsuit filed by Delhi-based astrologer-cum-advocate Suresh Kaushal and sought respondents' replies by July 20, the date slated for next hearing of the case.

Kaushal contended before the bench that the high court had delivered a 'perverse ruling' that would threaten the natural balance of society.

Kaushal's lawsuit urges the apex court to overturn the high court's July 2 ruling legalising carnal interaction in private between any two consenting adults of the same sex.

Defined as unnatural sex under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, homosexuality was punishable with imprisonment up to life.

Appearing for Kaushal, his counsel Praveen Agrawal contended before the bench that the high court should not have delivered this verdict legalizing homosexual acts as even otherwise the cases registered under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code happen to be few and far between.

Agreeing to this contention, the bench observed: 'True. We too have not seen many cases in our career spanning over three decades.'

Alluding to the possibilities of social anomalies like men marrying men and women marrying women as a result of the high court ruling, Agrawal pleaded to the bench to suspend the ruling till a decision on his petition. The bench, however, declined the plea.

Assailing the high court's ruling, which legalizes carnal interaction between two consenting adults in private, Agrawal said the ruling virtually legalizes prostitution as prostitution too happens to be carnal interaction in private between two consenting adults.

The advocate, in his petition, termed prostitution 'at least a shade better than gay sex' saying that the former at least is 'not against the order of nature'.

He contended that the ruling virtually also legalizes incestuous relations, jeopardising the entire moral and social values of traditional and conservative Indian society.

In his petition filed in the apex court registry Wednesday, Kaushal asserted that the high court verdict would result in spread of HIV virus as 'it has been amply proved that the HIV virus is a result of unnatural sex'.

He contended that the Delhi High Court has based its ruling on the verdicts of various courts of western countries which have far different social values than those prevalent in India.