Live Updates: SC to resume hearing on Section 377 on Wednesday

Follow for updates as a five judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India begins hearing a batch of writ petitions by LGBT persons challenging the constitutionality of Section 377 on July 10.

The Supreme Court on April 24 had again sought the Central government’s response on a petition challenging Section 377. Senior counsel and former Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi had urged the bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud to ask the government to respond to the plea. "I want to know the Central government's stand on the constitutionality of Section 377. For one year, no reply has come," he told the bench.

Indian Penal Code's Section 377, which criminalises sexual acts “against the order of nature”, regardless of consent, effectively criminalises consensual same sex activity and stigmatises the LGBT community

The Modi government will finally have to spell out its stand on Section 377 as the Supreme Court has refused its request to adjourn hearing on the archaic law scheduled for today, July 10

Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra recently reconstituted the Constitution bench. The Section 377 case will now be decided by CJI Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud, Rohinton F Nariman and Indu Malhotra

Chef Ritu Dalmia, Navtej Johar, Sunil Mehra, Ayesha Kapur and Aman Nath are among the LGBT persons who have filed petitions being heard by the Supreme Court challenging the legal validity of Section 377

"When the 2009 Delhi High Court judgement came, so many people came out of the closet. And with the 2013 (Supreme Court) judgement, it was like taking 10 steps back. A gay person already goes through a lot of trauma to come to terms with their sexuality, and when they hear that it is also criminal, this trauma just gets accelerated."

In May, another petition was filed challenging constitutionality of Section 377 by a batch of 20 current and former students of Indian Institutes of Technology. Students, claiming to represent more than 350 LGBT alumni, students, staff and faculty from the IITs, said that the existence of Section 377 had caused them "mental trauma and illnesses, such as clinical depression and anxiety and relegated some of them to second-class citizenship".

Coming from different parts of the country with diverse religion, age, sex and other backgrounds, the IIT student petitioners said that Section 377 legitimises the stigma associated with sexual orientation and its expression—something which is essential, fundamental, intrinsic and innate to an individual

Constitution Bench of CJI Dipak Misra, Justices Rohinton Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra sits; Hearing on Section 377 commences

1. Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (UOI), WP (Crl) No. 76/2016
2. AKKAI PADMASHALI v. UOI, WP(C) No.572/2016
3. Keshav Suri v. UOI, WP (Crl) No.88 of 2018
4. Arif Jafar v. UOI, WP(Crl) No.100/2/18
5. Ashok Row Kavi and others v. UOI, WP(Crl) No.101/2018
6. ANWESH POKKULURI  v. UOI, WP (Crl) No. 121/2018