Express News Service By

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to consider the plea for an open court hearing on curative petitions filed by gay rights activists against its verdict of criminalising homosexuality.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, before whom the matter was mentioned by senior lawyers, said it would first go through the documents and then decide. Curative petition is the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances in court and is normally considered by judges in-chamber without granting opportunity to parties to argue the case.

The petitioners, including NGO Naz Foundation, contended that there was an error in the judgement delivered on December 11 last year as it was based on old law.

“The judgement was reserved on March 27, 2012, but the verdict was delivered after around 21 months and during this period lots of changes took place including amendment in laws which were not considered by the Bench which delivered the judgement,” senior advocate Ashok Desai told the Bench.

Other senior advocates Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi, Anand Grover and other lawyers also supported Desai and pleaded for an open court hearing.

They submitted that the case should have been heard by the Constitution Bench instead of two-Judge Bench which heard and delivered the verdict on the controversial issue.