The Supreme Court said that it will not review its controversial order that made gay sex criminal. The December verdict had drawn sharp criticism internationally for failing to protect fundamental individual rights.

The top court had stated that only parliament could change the law, by deleting Section 377- a colonial-era statute of the Indian Penal Code which bans sex “against the order of nature”- is constitutionally valid.

The Centre and gay rights activists had appealed against the Supreme Court’s decision. But judges today said they saw no reason to interfere with the order.

Now, the union government has two options: it can either file a curative petition in the Supreme Court, or it can try to amend the law in Parliament.

A curative petition, the final appeal in the legal process, is heard by the Supreme Court’s senior-most judges including the Chief Justice of the country.

Amending the law in parliament will be tough for the government. The main opposition party, the BJP, has said it backs Article 377.

The next parliament session, starting February 5, lasts 11 days, and is the last time Parliament will meet before the national election, due by May.

In 2009, the Delhi High Court exempted gay sex between consenting adults from the ban imposed by Section 377. That verdict was the result of a case brought by the Naz Foundation, a sexual rights organization, which fought a legal battle for almost a decade.

Different religious groups appealed against the Delhi High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favour.

The Supreme Court bench, headed by G.S. Singhvi on his last day before retirement, found the High Court had overstepped its authority and that the law passed by the British in 1860 does not violate the Constitution.

Several hundred gay activists had protested the verdict in Delhi, waving rainbow flags and chanting slogans for freedom.

A new controversy has scaled up around former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal, arrested in November for allegedly raping a younger co-worker.

Mr. Tejpal, who is imprisoned in Goa on charges of raping a younger co-worker there, says that the investigating officer handling his case has wrongly accused him of intimidation, and that influenced a judge to deny him bail earlier this month.

Mr. Tejpal, 50, has written a letter to police officer Sunita Sawant, which has been released to the media by his family.

He writes that after reviewing the court order that outlined the reasons for refusing him bail, “I am shocked and distressed by the observation that suggests you have complained of being intimidated and harassed by me. This is so far from the truth as to be outrageous.”

Mr. Tejpal writes that he has cooperated with medical and psychological exams, “answering over a thousand questions over several hours.”

Mr. Tejpal and his lawyers have claimed that the BJP, which governs Goa, is using the case against him as revenge for earlier exposes on some of the party’s top leaders that were published in Tehelka, an investigative news-magazine. The party has denied the charges.
In his letter to the officer handling his case, Mr. Tejpal refers repeatedly to “fishing expeditions” taken by the police which put him through irrelevant questions. He says the charges of intimidation and harassment are “merely a ploy to sabotage my chances for grant of my bail.”

The woman journalist who was allegedly raped by Mr. Tejpal at a Tehelka conference in Goa last year has quit the magazine. She did not file the case against him; the Goa police acted on the orders of the state government after emails between Mr. Tejpal and the woman were leaked. After that, the young woman has testified against Mr. Tejpal in the Goa court handling his trial.