NEW DELHI: The Supreme Courtroom on Monday refused to entertain a plea filed in opposition to the exclusion of the penal provisions for the offences of unnatural intercourse and sodomy from the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), which changed the Indian Penal Code (IPC). A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra mentioned the problem falls inside parliamentary area and it can not move any path within the matter.
“We will not compel the Parliament to introduce legal guidelines. We will not create an offence…This courtroom beneath Article 142 can not direct {that a} specific act constitutes an offence. Such train falls beneath parliamentary area,” the bench mentioned because it allowed the petitioner to strategy the federal government with a illustration on the problem.
Part 377 of the IPC punished non-consensual “unnatural intercourse” between two adults, sexual actions in opposition to minors, and bestiality. On September 6, 2018, the Supreme Courtroom, nonetheless, decriminalised same-sex relationships between two consenting adults.
The BNS, which changed the IPC, got here into power from July 1, 2024. The courtroom was listening to a plea filed by one Pooja Sharma looking for to deal with the “exigent authorized lacuna” ensuing from the enactment of the BNS.
“The act of omission on the a part of respondent (authorities) leaves the victims of non-consensual unnatural intercourse in dearth of any authorized treatment, which might commensurate with the gravity of offence as had been earlier outlined beneath Part 377 of the IPC,” mentioned the plea.
In August, 2024, the Delhi Excessive Courtroom had requested the Centre to make its stand clear on the exclusion of penal provisions for the offences of unnatural intercourse and sodomy from the recently-introduced BNS, changing the IPC, and mentioned the legislature must handle the problem of non-consensual unnatural intercourse.
