SC to hear pleas on section 377 from today

New Delhi, July 10: Supreme Court will today begin hearing pleas challenging Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes homosexuality.

 

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra will hear a bunch of petitions by 35 individuals challenging Section 377. The apex court on Monday refused to delay today's hearing after Centre requested for more time to file its response to the petitions.

The court said, the matter has been pending for a while and the Centre should have filed its response by now. Earlier, in 2009, Delhi High Court had decriminalized Section 377, but the order was later set aside by a Supreme Court bench.

The apex court had in 2013 had restored the criminality of the sexual relationship between persons of the same sex, after the Delhi High Court' had decriminalised it in 2009.

Section 377 refers to 'unnatural offences' and says whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to pay a fine.