The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a petition filed on behalf of Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev that challenged the Delhi High Court judgment legalising gay sex among consenting adults.
A Bench of Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam also issued notice on another petition filed by Apostolic Churches Alliance. The Bench directed the two petitions to be tagged with a batch of similar petitions and posted the matter for further hearing to September 14.
It asked the Centre to file its response in the meanwhile.
S. K. Tijarawala, who filed the petition on behalf of Baba Ramdev, contended that the High Court had failed to appreciate the fact that homosexual activities were not only against public morality and health and healthy environment but also against the interest of society, because they put a large chunk of population at the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
He contended that the High Court decision, “if allowed to sustain, will have catastrophic effects on the moral fabric of society and will jeopardise the institution of marriage itself. This offends the structure of Indian value system, the Indian culture and traditions, as derived from religious scriptures.”
Against dignity
The petitioner said: “The sexual activities of homosexuals are against the dignity of human kind. The Constitution protects the relative dignity of every human being. There is no concept of personal dignity in the Constitution, which implies that the Constitution provides for a society where all citizens respect the dignity of each other. Any act of an individual which causes harm to society or the values of others can, by no stretch of imagination, be justified on the ground that it is part of the scheme of guarantee of human dignity by our Constitution.”
