ForumIAS announcing GS Foundation Program for UPSC CSE 2025-26 from 19 April. Click Here for more information.
ForumIAS Answer Writing Focus Group (AWFG) for Mains 2024 commencing from 24th June 2024. The Entrance Test for the program will be held on 28th April 2024 at 9 AM. To know more about the program visit: https://forumias.com/blog/awfg2024
- Homosexual intercourse was made a criminal offense under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
- In 2009, the Delhi High Court decision in Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi found Section 377 and other legal prohibitions against private, adult, consensual, and non-commercial same-sex conduct to be in direct violation of fundamental rights provided by the Indian Constitution.
- On 23 February 2012, the Ministry of Home Affairs expressed its opposition to the decriminalization of homosexual activity, stating that in India, homosexuality is seen as being immoral.
- On 28 February 2012, The Central Government reversed its stand and stated that there was no legal error in decriminalizing homosexual activity.
- On 11 December 2013, the Supreme Court set aside the 2009 Delhi High Court order decriminalizing consensual homosexual activity within its jurisdiction.
- In 2013, when the Supreme Court sounded out Parliament to read down section 377, the political leadership ducked.
- Two years later, a majority of lawmakers blocked even any discussion on a bill brought by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to scrap the section.
- On January 28, 2014 Supreme Court dismissed the review Petition filed by Central Government, NGO Naz Foundation and several others, against its December 11 verdict on Section 377 of IPC.
- On December 18, 2015, Shashi Tharoor, a member of the Indian National Congress party, introduced the bill for the decriminalization of Section 377, but the bill was rejected by the house by a vote of 71-24.
- On February 2, 2016, the Supreme Court decided to review criminalization of homosexual activity.
- In 2016, Kerala mooted free sex-reassignment surgeries in Government hospitals after it introduced the first State government policy on transgender people.
- In February 2017, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare introduced resource material relating to health issues to be used as a part of a nationwide adolescent peer-education plan called Saathiya.
- Among other subjects, the material discusses homosexuality.
- The text states the fact that it is quite normal to fell attracted for a friend or any individual of the same or opposite sex.
This initiative aims at cultivating a positive attitude towards queer theory and irradiating homophobia.
