On 11/12/15 which marks the second anniversary of the Suresh Kumar Koushal judgement of the Supreme Court of India, which effectively recriminalised LGBT persons, the union government needs to be reminded of its constitutional responsibility to decriminalise the lives of millions of LGBT citizens. The lives of LGBT citizens are not a political football to be tossed from the judiciary to parliament and from parliament to the judiciary. It is time the government owned its responsibility!

In this connection, the petition below argues that constitutional morality enjoins that the government takes action to repeal s.377.

The petition itself is available at the following link for your endorsement http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/mr-modi-repeal-s377-ipc-its-your

Please circulate  widely and get as many signatures as we can of groups and individuals from diverse backgrounds including persons from the fields of law, politics, activism, academia, artists and others.

For more information on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and the struggle to repeal it, check out the 377 archives at http://377.orinam.net/

Part I: Introduction and first part of Ashok Desai’s talk

Part II: Second and concluding part of Ashok Desai’s talk

Part III: First part of Shyam Diwan’s talk

Part IV: Second and concluding part of Shyam Diwan’s talk

Part V: Menaka Guruswamy

Part VI: Arvind Narrain

Part VII: Q&A Session

*Speaker biographies:
Ashok Desai, Senior Advocate and former Attorney General for India. He has argued several landmark constitutional law cases in his professional career spanning over six decades. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2001.

Shyam Divan, Senior Advocate, is a distinguished counsel with many years of practice before the High Court of Bombay and the Supreme Court. He has been involved in many important constitutional law cases and his written extensively on environmental law in India.

Menaka Guruswamy practices law at the Supreme Court of India. She has been involved in a number of key constitutional law cases including on administrative reform and encounter killings. She has written extensively on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. She has taught at Columbia Law School and New York University School of Law.

Arvind Narrain is a human rights activist and lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, of which he is a founder member. He is the author of Queer: Despised Sexuality, Law and Social Change (2004) and co-editor of Because I have a Voice: Queer Politics in India (2005).