The July 2 judgement of the High Court of Delhi decriminalising homosexuality is highly shocking and deplorable. Members of judiciary are expected to consider natural justice, larger interests of society, its moral health as well as its smooth functioning. Playing with the literal words used in the framing of laws does not behove their honourable personages. But, as the spell of moral perversion creeping into the very fibre of society would have it, in striking down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar said this penal law violates Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Article 21 does guarantee ‘protection of life and personal liberty’; but read with Article 25, the law does not entitle a citizen to enjoy personal liberty or freedom of conscience at the cost of public health and morality. The Judges forgot to keep in view the comprehensive wisdom in Article 25 (1) which avers that this right to personal liberty or freedom of conscience is not absolute rather it is ‘subject to public order, morality and health’.
This scrapping of Section 377 of IPC has in fact opened a Pandora’s Box. All the perverted elements of society, from homo-maniacs to prostitutes, have come out in the open. Till yesterday they had been doing their black deeds of course with a sense of guilt and with some sense of fear of society and the law of the land. But now, with the scrapping of this penal law they feel a boost, a bulge, a hump. Discussions of sorts are finding place in blogs, on screens or in newspapers. Reports confirm that prostitutes say what is wrong in decriminalising prostitution when you have done so with homosexuality. The women who love to die alive on the pyres of their husbands also feel prompted to air their voice against Sati law. And so do those who feel that suicide is also committed under the impulse of personal liberty. It is as if the jinn has come out of the bottle and nothing legal, moral or religious can catch hold of it: things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, to cite W.B. Yeats.
It is not a question of striking down a British Raj law, as the advocates of gay sex seem to argue. Nor is it a case of granting personal liberty or freedom to a ‘discriminated lot’. The question is that of moral health of society. You can just imagine the consequences of such liberties given in a free-for-all society: no one will have trust and confidence even in one’s close relations and neighbours. This is what is happening in the morally depraved societies in the West. If over one hundred countries, mostly in the West, have legalised this criminal, unnatural act, there is no wisdom in aping the West with our eyes shut and putting our age old tradition under the carpet.
It is heartening to note that this HC order has been challenged in the Apex Court, faith leaders have condemned it in superlatives and people irrespective of their respective religio-political affiliations are protesting against this court verdict. It is high time Section 377 of IPC remained intact and laws made more stringent against this unnatural and criminal act. The sooner the better.