Delete section 377 of IPC: NGO

January 8, 2002

Delete section 377 of IPC: NGO: DECCAN HERALD

Monday, January 7, 2002

BANGALORE, (DHNS. Mumbai-based Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS unit and The Freedom

Foundation with its head quarters in Bangalore has demanded the deletion of

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which empowers the police to book people

for indulging in unnatural sexual behaviour. Speaking to reporters here on

Saturday, Mr. Anand Grover, Project Director, HIV/Aids unit, Lawyers Collective,

accused Bangalore police of misusing the section against homosexuals, by

rounding them up in parks. “As per the section, the guilty should be arrested

only when found indulging in the sexual act and not when found cruising into

parks”, he said.

The IPC Section 377, under the unnatural offenses category reads thus, “Whoever

voluntarily indulges in carnal intercourse against the order of nature with a

man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with

imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years and

shall also be liable to fine”.

Lawyers Collective in association with Freedom Foundation, an NGO, launched an

awareness drive about the rights of the HIV/AIDS affected in Bangalore on

January 4 and 5, 2002. Mr. Ashok Rau Founder/Director of the Freedom Foundation,

who is one of the India’s most out spoken advocates and activist on HIV/AIDS and

substance abuse, also spoke. “ India needs to review and make some drastic

changes in some of the existing statutes and laws, the existing ones are out

dated and punitive” he said.

Justice Edwin Cameron, Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa, and Justice

Kirby, High Court of Australia are in the city to promote the campaign.

They have been interacting with different sections of society.

Justice Cameron who was also present at the press conference, said the issue was

no more confined to only the medical or the social aspect but had assumed the

form of an issue of rights. Justice Cameron said he was himself a gay and has

been afflicted with the HIV virus since 1995 and is on anti retroviral

medication. “If rights are given to the affected, the epidemic can be prevented

from spreading”, he added.

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