{"id":32159,"date":"2018-10-29T12:52:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T07:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=32159"},"modified":"2018-10-29T12:52:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T07:22:25","slug":"question-of-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/question-of-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Question of equality\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/editorial\/question-of-equality\/article22406677.ece\"><strong>Question of equality<\/strong><\/a><strong><u>\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reconsider its 2013 order criminalising gay sex<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier verdict<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A reconsideration of the flawed verdict in\u00a0<em>Suresh Kumar Koushal\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>is now in prospect<\/p>\n<p>A three-judge Bench\u00a0has opened up an opportunity\u00a0to reconsider that verdict, which came to the disturbing conclusion that the LGBT community was just a \u201cminuscule fraction\u201d of the population and also ruled that those having sexual intercourse \u201cagainst the order of nature\u201d constituted a separate class on which the law could validly impose penal sanctions<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fresh petition apart from the curative petition already in the court<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although the matter is already before a Constitution Bench by way of a curative petition against the earlier judgment, the latest order is on a fresh petition challenging Section 377<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Petition draws observations from Right to Privacy judgement<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It draws from the observations in the nine-judge Bench judgment in the \u2018right to privacy\u2019 case<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The majority observed in\u00a0<em>Justice<\/em>\u00a0<em>K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India<\/em>\u00a0that \u201cequality demands that the sexual orientation of each individual in society must be protected on an even platform<\/li>\n<li>The right to privacy and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The Bench has rightly observed that social morality changes from age to age, that \u201cthe morality that public perceives, the Constitution may not conceive of,\u201d and that what is \u201cnatural to one may not be natural to another\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>New hope<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thus, there is fresh hope that the\u00a0Delhi High Court judgment of 2009, which read down Section 377 to decriminalise consensual sex between adults, may be restored<\/p>\n<p><strong>Support for the case<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ever since the court, in\u00a0<em>National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India\u00a0<\/em>(2014), concerning the rights of transgender persons, questioned the\u00a0<em>Koushal\u00a0<\/em>reasoning, there has been a body of jurisprudence that sees gender identity and sexual orientation as an aspect of privacy, personal freedom and dignity<\/p>\n<p><strong>Curative petition<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is not yet clear if the present petition and the curative petition will be heard together<\/p>\n<p>A curative petition is normally allowed only on the limited grounds of violation of principles of natural justice and circumstances suggesting possible bias on the part of judges<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contrast with the latest petition<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In contrast, the latest petition has paved the way for a comprehensive hearing on all dimensions of the right of individuals to affirm their sexual orientation<\/li>\n<li>In this, the court must not confine itself to the issue of privacy, but also address the discrimination inherent in Section 377 on the basis of sexual orientation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The formulation in\u00a0<em>Koushal<\/em>\u00a0 that constitutional protection is not available to a tiny fraction of the population can be overturned only on the touchstone of Article 14, which protects the right to equality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question of equality\u00a0 Context The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reconsider its 2013 order criminalising gay sex Earlier verdict A reconsideration of the flawed verdict in\u00a0Suresh Kumar Koushal\u00a0\u00a0is now in prospect A three-judge Bench\u00a0has opened up an opportunity\u00a0to reconsider that verdict, which came to the disturbing conclusion that the LGBT community was just a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/question-of-equality\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Question of equality\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704789157},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}