Supreme Court rejects the centre’s plea of granting it more time, regarding the section 377 IPC

NEW DELHI: On Monday The Supreme Court (SC) admonished the Centre for its delay in filing a response to the petitions against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and said it would not be granting it more time. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalises homosexuality. The petitions against it look for the protection of the sexual orientation and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. The Centre had requested the SC for more time to file its response for the petitions.

The Constitution Bench of the top court will on Tuesday (July 10) hear the petitions against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexuality.  The SC said the matter had been pending for a while and the Centre should have filed its response by now. "We will go ahead with the scheduled hearing. We will not adjourn it. You (Centre) file whatever you want during the hearing", said a bench of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud.

In May, the apex court decided to hear the plea filed by Indian Institute of Technology's LGBT alumni association seeking scrapping of Section 377 of IPC. Earlier, on April 27, Ashok Rao Kavi of Humsafar Trust and Arif Jaffar also filed petitions against the Section 377. These two pleas came in just six days after hotelier Keshav Suri, filed a plea in this regard in the top court. In response to Suri's plea, the apex court on April 23 sought the Centre's reply on the plea in regard of scrapping of the Section 377.

Earlier, in 2009, the Delhi High Court had decriminalised Section 377, but the order was later set aside by a Supreme Court bench.Categorised as an unnatural offence, consensual sexual intercourse between persons of same-sex is termed 'against the order of nature' under Section 377 of the IPC, and can be punishable with life imprisonment.