Naqvi plays it safe.
In an interesting development, the Supreme Court referred to a larger branch a plea seeking to decriminalise gay between two consenting adults. A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said the issue arising out of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) required to be debated upon by a larger bench.
This however brought up an interesting proposition. Would members of the LGBT community become a ‘minority community in the future’?
Responding to the question, union minister for minority affairs said he couldn’t comment on the question. He told DNA: "I cannot comment on the matter of LGBTQ community becoming a minority community in future. The matter is in Supreme Court and let us wait for the direction of the Supreme Court on this and then after that the government will decide. Whatever law ministry feels is appropriate after that will be done."
As of now the Ministry of Minority Affairs is the apex body of the central government’s regulatory and developmental programmes for minority religious communities in India including Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains.
Section 377 of the IPC refers to 'unnatural offences' and says whoever voluntarily has carnal inter course against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to pay a fine.
The bench was hearing a fresh plea filed by one Navtej Singh Johar seeking to declare section 377 as unconstitutional to the extent that it provides prosecution of adults for indulging in consensual gay sex.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for Johar, said the penal provision was unconstitutional as it also provided prosecution and sentencing of consenting adults who are indulging in such sex.
India's Supreme Court had in a surprise ruling in 2013 reinstated a ban on gay sex after a four-year period of decriminalisation that had helped bring homosexuality into the open in the socially conservative country.
India's LGBT community has argued the ban undermines fundamental rights as it fails to protect them. But earlier petitions to review the ban were overturned by the court.
Although the law banning homosexuality is rarely enforced in India, it is used to intimidate, harass, blackmail and extort money from gay people, activists say.
There are no official figures on the number of cases and most go unreported as victims are too scared to report crimes to the police, fearing they will be punished too, activists say.
"We want to emphasise that we are not asking for any special rights. We are asking for constitutional rights given to any citizen in the country," said Koninika Roy from the Humsafar Trust that works with the LGBT community.
With inputs from PTI and Reuters
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