Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code has been read down by the Supreme Court of India in a landmark judgment.
Download the judgment here.
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Below are some tweets which capture the essence of the judgment.
#Section377 The Bench has pronounced all 4 opinions and the matter is concluded. Sexual intercourse between consenting adults from the LGBT community have been decriminalized in India! We shall be sharing the final orders soon.
— sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 6, 2018
#Section377 – Justice Malhotra – History owes an apology to these people and their families. Homosexuality is part of human sexuality. They have the right of dignity and free of discrimination. Consensual sexual acts of adults are allowed for LGBT community.
— sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 6, 2018
#Section377 Chandrachud – To deny the LGBT community their right to expression is also violative of the fundamental right to privacy. Human sexuality cannot be confined to a binary existence.
— sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 6, 2018
Excellent to see the principle of non-retrogression of rights accepted by the Chief Justice (paragraphs 188 and 189) [i.e., society cannot regress after reaching a certain standard of rights]. This was at the heart of Shyam Divan’s submissions.
— Gautam Bhatia (@gautambhatia88) September 6, 2018
And lastly, Nariman J says that there is no presumption of constitutionality for laws that were passed by a colonial, foreign regime (the Brits). Brilliant!
— Gautam Bhatia (@gautambhatia88) September 6, 2018
#Section377 CJI – Morality cannot be martyred at the alter of social morality. Only Constitutional morality exists in our country.
— sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 6, 2018
According to the 477 paged judgement of the Honorable Supreme Court is just to negate the draconian law of Section 377 of the IPC . That law should be embraced later but first and foremost the legislature should pass a law so that this matter can’t be put forward to a bigger bench that is the bench consisting of all judge of the Supreme Court. The way by which Honorable Judges Chandrachud, Nariman and CJI Mishra debated upon this matter in there respective judgments is commendable. As per me a legislature passed will be an extra weight age on the judgment passed and those going to be passed in the Honorable Supreme Courts and other Subordinate Courts.