Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: A day after the Supreme Court set aside a Delhi High Court judgement decriminalising gay sex, Union Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday said that the government is considering options to restore the HC verdict.
Reacting on the SC order Sibal today tweeted and said: “The Govt is considering all options to restore the High Court verdict on #377. We must decriminalise adult consensual relationships.”
Sibal had on Wednesday said it is the SC’s prerogative to test the constitutionality of the law and their verdict on homosexuality as an offence must be respected by the government.
"It is the prerogative of the Supreme Court to judge the constitutionality and validity of the law. The opinion of the Supreme Court must be respected by the government. They have exercised their prerogative now, we shall exercise ours," Kapil Sibal said.
The Congress leader’s reaction comes after the apex court put the ball in Parliament`s court to consider the "desirability and propriety" of deleting or amending the penal provision making sexual intercourse between people of same sex as a criminal offence attracting punishment up to life imprisonment.
A bench of Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhaya set aside the Delhi High Court`s judgement which had in 2009 decriminalised physical relation between the same sex among consenting adults in private by making it clear that its verdict is merely on "correctness" of view taken by the high court.
"While parting with the case, we would like to make it clear that this Court has merely pronounced on the correctness of the view taken by the Delhi High Court on the constitutionality of section 377 (unnatural offences) IPC and found that the said section does not suffer from any constitutional infirmity.
"Notwithstanding this verdict, the competent legislature shall be free to consider the desirability and propriety of deleting Section 377 IPC from the statute book or amend the same as per the suggestion made by the Attorney General," the bench said.
