On Wednesday, a bench composed of Delhi High Court Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Galela directed the Centre to address a plea against the exclusion of penal provisions for unnatural sex and sodomy from the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (formerly IPC). While hearing a PIL seeking to address the "exigent legal lacuna" resulting from the enactment of the BNS which has also led to the repeal of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
"What people were asking was not to make consensual (unnatural) sex punishable. You made even non-consensual (unnatural) sex non punishable. Suppose something happens outside the court today, are we all to shut our eyes because it is not a penal offence in the statute books?" said the bench. The petitioner submitted to the bench that the BNS excludes any kind of provision addressing non-consensual sex like the earlier section 377 of IPC. Petitioner in the interim relief sought a directive to revive the section criminalising non-consensual sex just like section 377 of IPC. He submitted that there is no legal recourse for a man being sexually assaulted by another man and even the FIR can’t be filed under the new law.
The plea referred to the Navtej Singh Johar case said that the SC decided to decriminalise consensual sec and only criminalise non-consensual sex, and its absence in the BNS has left a big legal void affecting a lot of vulnerable communities.
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