Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is of the opinion that India must move with the times and the Supreme Court must reconsider its 2014 judgement on gay sex which criminalises the act.
While maintaining that the 2014 Supreme Court judgement that set aside the Delhi High Court verdict de-criminalising gay sex was not in accordance with evolving legal jurisprudence, Jaitley said that it needs to be in accordance with the present context.
“When you have millions of people involved in this (gay sex) you can’t nudge them off,” he said, adding that the court had taken a “conservative view”.
He referred to the evolution of jurisprudence and said that the view taken by the court on the issue would have been relevant about 50 years ago but “as jurisprudence world over is evolving, I think the judgement was not correct and probably at some stage they may have to reconsider”.
Jaitley also said that courts in India have always defended the right to free speech.
