New Delhi:
If
the officials documents are to be believed, the
government is unlikely to oppose the Delhi High Court (HC) verdict
legalising the homosexual acts between consenting adults.
The
note expected to be put up before the Union Cabinet on Thursday,
prepared after a series of meetings between the home, health and law
ministries, states that there appeared to be no "legal error in the judgment
given by the court on July 2, which has not struck down the entire section 377 of the IPC".
The
three ministries had been directed by the Prime Minister to firm up
the government stand, following the opposing stands taken by the
home and health ministries before the high court last year.
The
fresh government note, portrayed as the unanimous view of the three
ministries is learnt to have been prepared on the basis of the
opinion given by Union Law Secretary, T. K.
Vishwanathan. "Since the court has not struck down the entire
section, and has confined itself to private consensual acts in
private, it will be difficult for the government to question the HC
judgment," the law secretary stated.
The
Union Government is yet to inform the Supreme Court (SC) of its stand on
Section 377 and the HC judgment. However, the Centre has already
told the SC that it doesn’t want a stay on the verdict. The
Supreme Court had issued notice to the government to submit its stand
on the HC ruling before
September 14 when the apex court will hear the petition once again
filed by number of individuals,
including yoga guru Swami Ramdev.
Earlier,
during hearing of the case before the HC, while the
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) strongly
opposed any move to dilute Section 377, the Health Ministry took the
opposite stand, supporting the contention of the petitioner that
consensual, same-gender sex be decriminalised. The Law Ministry
supported the MHA. Worried over the widening chasm between the
ministries over the controversial issue, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh had led the Cabinet in asking the three ministers to sit
together and resolve their differences.
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Assigning gay marriage legal status is a sign of total disregard of
the family institution and the upholding of instincts of depravity and
degenerate activities. It would have been better for such people to
embrace celibacy or then to channelize themselves to improving the lot
of the world. God knows there is enough sorrow which needs to be
addressed. While one can probably argue into infinity about the merits
or demerits of such relationships, the fact remains that same sex
marriages are a hoax, to say the least. All religions have condemned
gay sex and there are strong reasons for it. Critics may plead that to
prevent or protest against negative behaviors is an infringement of
the individual's right to freedom. But the individual's freedom ends
where another individual's freedom begins. The question is: How has
the government managed to pass this bill in the face of a conservative
society like India's? And secondly, why?
Ozma Siddiqui
Riyadh
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