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| Limiting the impact of Section 377 | | | Chintan Chandrachud
Two difficult options have been considered so far to nullify the Supreme Court's decision on Section 377.
But there is another, more subtle, option on the table December 11, 2014 marked one year from the day on which the Supreme Court delivered one of its most heavily criticised judgments in recent history: Suresh Kumar Koushal v Naz Foundation. (Koushal). The court's order in that case is only too well known- it had reversed a Delhi High Court judgment reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (which criminalises 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature'), effectively placing India's LGBT community in the shadow of criminality and continued social stigmatisation. The judgment first extended a rebuttable presumption of constitutionality to an almost conclusive presumption that legislation which is validly enacted cannot be struck down, second it failed to consider whether the separate legislative treatment of 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature' was based on intelligible grounds and third, it seemed to ascribe a numerical de minimus for the enjoyment of fundamental rights.
So far, scholars and activists have considered two options to nullify Koushal: one, a judicial reconsideration of the decision and two, the legislative repeal of Section 377. As it stands, both of these seem difficult. In February 2014, the Supreme Court dismissed a review petition seeking reconsideration of the judgment. A second review petition (called a 'curative petition') is pending, and placing bets on its outcome is a task best left to daredevils. Legislative repeal is a much bleaker prospect, given that the Bharatiya Janata Party and its associates have sent mixed signals on the issue. It is also widely perceived that legislative repeal will jeopardise an important segment of the party's conservative political constituency - a price that it is probably unwilling to pay. But there is a third, much more subtle, option on the table - narrowing the impact of Koushal through subsequent decisions.
Two judgments indicate that this option is silently under way. In National Legal Services Authority v Union of India, the Supreme Court was tasked with deciding whether the right to equality and other fundamental rights required state recognition of hijras and transgenders as a third gender for the purposes of public health, welfare, reservations in education and employment, etc. In a remarkably broad ruling, the court held that transgenders should be treated as a third gender and that they should be given the right to gender self-identification. Without overruling Koushal, the court undercut some of its findings. First, it observed that even though Section 377 was facially gender neutral, it had a disproportionate impact on certain communities. Second, it rejected the numerical de minimus for the enjoyment of fundamental rights set up by Koushal, observing that transgenders, "even though insignificant in numbers," enjoyed the same fundamental rights as everyone else.
In another scarcely reported, but no less significant, judgment (Kirankumar Devmani v State of Gujarat), the Gujarat High Court dealt similar setbacks to Koushal. The question before the High Court was whether the state was justified in refusing to grant tax concession for a Gujarati film depicting the life of a homosexual. In a carefully reasoned judgment, the court held that the state's refusal violated the right to equality and the freedom of speech and expression. The Koushal judgment arose for the court's consideration, since the question then was whether the state was justified in refusing concessions to a film that encouraged an "illegal" act.
(Courtesy:@asianage.com) |
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