Previous Year Question

The correct answer is Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

A five-Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on 6 September 2018 in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, dealing with the constitutional validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

An important point is that Section 377 was not struck down in its entirety. The Court held it unconstitutional to the extent that it criminalised private consensual sexual relations between adults. Thus, the criminalisation of consensual same-sex relations between adults was removed.

The judgment examined equality, dignity, privacy, personal liberty and sexual orientation in the context of constitutional rights. The Court recognised sexual orientation as an important aspect of individual identity and held that constitutional rights cannot be denied to a group merely on the basis of majoritarian social morality.

Therefore, both Article 377 of the Constitution and Article 277 are incorrect options. The controversy concerned not a constitutional Article 377, but Section 377 of the then Indian Penal Code, 1860.

A current legal update is also useful—the Indian Penal Code was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 with effect from 1 July 2024.