India’s top court will tackle sodomy law
India’s Supreme Court has scheduled a new hearing in the challenge to the country’s law criminalizing homosexuality, a member of the legal team challenging the law confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Thursday.
The lawyer, who declined to comment on the record for this story, said he had been notified by the court’s registrar the hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 2.
This new hearing is on what is known as a “curative petition,” a motion to reconsider a Supreme Court judgment that has already been issued. A panel of judges will consider reversing the decision issued in December 2013 that reinstated the country’s colonial-era sodomy law — known as Section 377 — which had been suspended for four years following a 2009 lower court ruling. This curative petition is the final appeal available to have the 2013 ruling reversed.
Nearly 600 people were reportedly arrested under the provision in the year after it came back into effect, according to statistics from India’s Home Ministry ….
For more information, read the full article in BuzzFeed, “India’s Supreme Court To Revisit Homosexuality Ruling Next Week.”
Related articles:
- Petition seeks repeal of India’s anti-gay Section 377 (Dec. 11, 2015, 76crimes.com)
- Constitutional Responsibility to Repeal Section 377 of Indian Penal Code (Dec. 11, 2015, Orinam)
- Roman Catholic leaders in India support LGBT rights (December 2013, 76crimes.com)
- India turns back the clock, restores anti-gay law (December 2013, 76crimes.com)
- India: Growing LGBTI openness, despite legal setback (June 2014, 76crimes.com)
- US State Department urges India to end anti-gay law (November 2014, pinknews.co.uk)
