UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi expressed 'disappointment' at the Supreme Court's judgment of criminalising homosexual acts that shocked the LGBT community, who have gone on roads to protest the ruling.
The Congress supremo said that she was 'disappointed' that the apex court has reversed a four-year-old Delhi High Court verdict and reinstated ban on gay sex.
"I hope that the Parliament will address the issue and uphold the Constitutional guarantee of life and liberty to all citizens of India, including those directly affected by this judgment," she said in a statement on Thursday.
In a setback for the LGBT community, an SC bench headed by justice GS Singhvi, who retired on Wednesday, threw out a Delhi High Court decision on decriminalising an 1860 section of the penal code that prohibits 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal'.
Former judge Singhvi said in his judgement that only parliament could change or abolish Section 377 and that a person who violates the law could be punished for upto 10 years imprisonment.
Sonia reacted to the SC ruling saying, "The High Court had wisely removed an archaic, repressive and unjust law that infringed on the basic human rights enshrined in our Constitutions."
Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal announced that the Congress-led UPA government has been 'considering all options to restore' the Delhi High Court judgment since the news broke on Wednesday.
"We must decriminalise adult consensual relationships. There should be a change in the law immediately, it doesn't fit our times, no sense in jeopardising adult relationships," he told ANI.
