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Economic and Political Weekly, November 15, 2008
- Section 377: No jurisprudential basis
- EPW, November 15, 2008
Home > Sexuality Minorities > Section 377 - where crime and ’sin’ are inseparable
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Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexual relations, has no jurisprudential justification as it makes illegal a consensual, voluntary sexual act that does not harm a third party and falls within individual autonomy. The State cannot use its power to punish a particular practice on grounds of immorality only because a majority believe it to be so. This law also defines a criminal class not by virtue of its behaviour but by sexual orientation.
