Supreme Court verdict on validity of Section 377 likely on September 6

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises homosexualityThe fivejudge constitution bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman Justice AM Khanwilkar Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra had reserved the verdict on July 17 on the conclusion of argumentsThe verdict assumes significance as in the earlier round of litigation in 2013 the Supreme Court had reversed the Delhi High Court ruling decriminalising homosexuality or same sex relationshipThe tone and tenor of the hearing of the matter on July 17 the day the verdict was reserved saw the court telling that it was duty bound to strike down a law that is in conflict with the fundamental rights and not to leave it to majoritarian government to address itIt is our duty to strike a law the moment we find a law in conflict with fundamental rights We dont leave it to the majoritarian government which may or may or act given the exigencies of its vote bank politics the constitution bench had saidThe moment we are convinced that a law is violative of the fundamental rights we will strike it down and not relegate it to legislature the court had saidThe hearing saw the Constitution bench disagreeing with some of the respondents telling it that decriminalizing the same sex relationship amongst the LGBT community would have a cascading effect on other statutes including the personnel laws and the spread of dreaded diseases like HIV and AIDSUnimpressed by the submission Justice Nariman had said that there would be no cascading effect as all such references in other statutes will get deletedJustice Chandrachud rejecting the contention had said that the cause of the sexually transmitted diseases was not sexual intercourse but unprotected sexCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in the headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever