Let ruling on Sec 377 be law : Govt

The Centre on Monday pleaded with the Supreme Court to let the Delhi High Court ruling decriminalising gay sex between adults to operate as law of the land for the time being but expressed serious reservation about marriages between such partners. Appearing for the Centre, attorney general Goolam E Vahanvati brushed aside the plea of petitioners for a stay on the HC verdict and said, “We want to reconsider our stand before the HC which has not quashed Section 377 of IPC but read it down by permitting consensual sex between adults in private.” Vahanvati said the law still recognised marriage as one between an adult male and a female and that the HC had done nothing to alter it. “There should not be any stay on the HC judgment. Larger aspects of marriage were not touched upon. The law as it exists today recognises a marriage between a bride and a bridegroom and not between a bridegroom and bridegroom or between a bride and a bride,” he said after a brief consultation with solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam. The Centre’s firm stand on “what constituted legal marriage” could cast a shadow on the much publicised gay marriages that took place in the country immediately after the HC judgment on July 2. The AG then sought time from the bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam so as to allow the Centre to re-formulate its stand on Section 377. Before the HC, the Centre had taken a belligerent stand opposing any change in the provisions of Section 377 as it existed since 1860, which termed intercourse between same-sex partners as “unnatural” and punishable with a sentence upto 10 years imprisonment. Agrawal, who was supported by advocate Harshvir P Singh, argued that if consensual sex between two adults was not an offence even if it was against nature, then why would someone be prosecuted for going to a prostitute. “There will now be gay parlours all over,” they said and argued for a stay of the HC order. The bench said Section 377 had always been used to punish paedophiles and was never used to prosecute consenting adults having a physical relationship in private. “The HC judgment is not harming anyone,” it said refusing the plea for a stay. It also granted eight weeks time to the Centre to respond to the notice and put on record its stand. However, the bench also rejected the plea of pro-HC judgment NGOs that the petitioners challenging the HC verdict had no locus standi to file an appeal as they were not parties before the HC.