The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Union government on a special leave petition challenging the Delhi High Court judgment declaring Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code unconstitutional and decriminalising unnatural sex among consenting adults.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices A.K. Ganguly and B.S. Chauhan also issued notice to the Naz Foundation, an NGO and other respondents, and directed that the SLP filed by B.P. Singhal, former BJP MP, be listed with similar petitions on which notice had already been issued.
Mr. Singhal said the High Court had failed to consider the vital aspect that if homosexuality was legalised, it would have an aggravating impact on offences such as gambling, the sati system, and adultery.
The SLP said the High Court failed to appreciate that homosexuality, “which is a perverted kind of sex, will adversely affect public health and in the name of thrill, enjoyment and fun the young shall walk into the trap of homosexual addiction. Alcohol, drug and disease were the natural concomitants of homosexual activity…Our culture requires that for protecting it, we must resist every attempt that tends to promote artificially, unnaturalness or immorality in sexual matters.”
