New Delhi:
The government was pulled up in the Supreme Court today for the many different stands it has taken in court on whether gay sex is unconstitutional.
Appearing for the government, the Additional Solicitor General today told the court that the Centre does not oppose the judgement of the Delhi High Court on the matter. In that landmark ruling in 2009, the High Court decriminalised gay sex between consenting adults.
"Don't make a mockery of the system," said the Supreme Court judges, pointing out that just last week, the Ministry of Home Affairs had, through a senior government lawyer, stated that homosexuality is "immoral" and "against nature" and should be banned. Additional Solicitor General PP Malhotra had said he was representing the Home Ministry when he urged the Supreme Court to reverse the High Court's verdict. The Home Ministry had then corrected him, clarifying through a statement that it " has not taken any position on homosexuality."
Different ministries of the government have taken stands in court that are diametrically opposite. The Health Ministry today said it sees no legal error in the High Court judgement.
The Supreme Court is hearing more than a dozen petitions filed to overturn the High Court ruling that struck down a colonial-era ban on gay sex on the grounds that it was unconstitutional
Prior to the Delhi High Court ruling, gay sex was illegal in India under a 150-year-old British colonial law that banned "carnal intercourse against the order of nature".
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was quoted in July last year as saying that it was "unnatural" and a "disease which has come from other countries."
Though he later claimed he had been misquoted, the remarks drew widespread condemnation from gay rights groups and the UN AIDS agency which said there was "no place for stigma and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."