Section 377 - where crime and ’sin’ are inseparable

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.