On 6 September 2018, the Supreme Court of India passed a major verdict on Homosexuality i.e. decriminalising homosexuality. Our honourable chief justice of India Deepak Misra said Section 377 discriminates against individuals based on their Sexual orientation and gender identity violating Article-14 & 15 of the Constitution further he said that it was also violating the Right to life, dignity and autonomy of personal choice of Article 21 and finally it was violating Article-19(1) (a) i.e. freedom of speech and expression.
NAZ Foundation Case, 2009
But passing this verdict was not easy to work it took many years to finally decriminalising homosexuality. The war was started in 2009 in Naz Foundation Vs Government of Delhi, in this Delhi High Court supported Homosexuality, saying that everyone is guaranteed Right to Dignity and Privacy under Article-21 of the Indian Constitution. Moreover discriminating people on the bases of their sex choices or being transgender which is entirely out of control of them is not supporting the Article-14 i.e. Right to Equality of The Indian Constitution. It is unreasonable discrimination where we are discriminating homosexuals as a class, moreover in Article-15 of the constitution also says that no-one is allowed to discriminate any other person on the sex and keeping these things in mind only, Delhi High Court passed the above judgement and wanted to remove homosexuality as a crime but still the power to remove that was still in the hands of parliament.
Suresh Kumar Koushal vs. Naz Foundation, 2013
Changing the above verdict our next case came in 2013, Suresh Kumar Koushal vs Naz Foundation. After the Naz foundation judgement finally, people were coming openly in the society and expressing their sex choice freely in front of everybody but some people that these people are going against nature’s law with this only Suresh Kumar case was there. In this case, two major points came out which was quashing the verdict of Naz Foundation that were:
- Homosexuality is a crime and to change it, power lies in the hand of parliament.
- Moreover, Right to Privacy cannot be extended to that extent where a crime under that.
Seeing the above statement the judgement of Naz foundation was no longer valid and again homosexuality was declared as a crime and anyone who was practising that practice was once again criminal. After this people once again started to hide their true identity.
NALSA vs. UOI, 2014
But this judgement did not last long and in support of Homosexuals, transgender another leading case came and supporting this community. It was NLSA Vs UOI case, in this, a major focus was given on the fact that from the ages people are discriminating with the community of these people and the Constitution of India was also focussing on the rights of men and women and nobody was paying attention to them. Every right was revolving around men and women, but its high time that proper attention should also be paid to this community and equal status should be provided to them.
Puttaswamy Case, 2017
Soon after this case in 2017 only a 9 bench judge case, Puttaswamy case arose. In this case, a major focus was on rectifying the mistake of Suresh Koushal case. In this case, it was finally believed that sexual orientations are essential rights of privacy which is a fundamental right of everyone under Article-21.
CONCLUSION
And finally, a landmark case of Navjot Singh Johar Vs UOI in 2018 came. This one of the major landmark judgement case where The Supreme Court finally decriminalised homosexuality as an offence, now being homosexual is no longer a crime. People have a right to live their life according to their will. Moreover, India is a democratic country where everyone is treated equally in the eyes of law. And finally, these innocent people won their war and got their equal status in society and now everybody has a right to choose their life.
This blog is written by Pragya Sharma, Amity University.
Some of her BLOGs,
- RIGHTS OF PRISONERS
- Should Marital Rape be criminalized in India?
- Rape under Indian penal Code
- UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY: What is Section 144?
- NEPOTISM in the WORKPLACES
- RIGHT TO EQUALITY: FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT
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