NEW DELHI: Reading down of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is not enough to secure the rights of the LGBT+ community, according to a study that has highlighted the need to repeal section 377 to prevent its misuse in cases of violence involving same sex relations.

In a landmark judgment the Supreme Court, through a reading down of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalised same sex consensual relationships on September 6 last year, but for the LGBT+ community legal inclusion is still a dream.

A study by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy has highlighted the need for victim neutrality in provisions related to sexual offences in criminal law and repeal of section 377 to prevent its misuse in cases of sexual violence involving same sex couples. The analysis also takes into account concerns of LGBT+ community members who participated in the consultations organised as part of the research.

The study titled "Queering the Law: Making Indian laws LGBT+ Inclusive" analyses India's legal regime across the broad themes of identity, violence, family and employment. "The objective of this analysis is to identify laws that either continue to operate in the male-female binary or discriminate against LGBT+ persons. This study aims at building on the conversation for legal inclusion," Akshat Agarwal, from Vidhi's research team said.

The study on "Violence" draws attention to the complexity of existing criminal laws. For instance it is pointed out that provisions of the IPC related to offences of sexual nature operate in the male-female binary and assume sexual acts in the same binary.

Since the decriminalisaton of same sex relationships, there has been a spike in instances of violence and of people wanting to come out of forced marriages, says the study. Often violence is perpetrated by family. The research draws attention to develop empirical evidence regarding forms of violence in LGBT+ relationships to help in legal reform and policy formulation.

The problem lies in provision itself as section 377 is a colonial provision classifying sexual acts on the basis of whether they are against the order of nature or not. "Utilising such a vaguely worded provisions for sexual violence that requires clear definitions is inadvisable," it is stated. The language of the provision does not distinguish between the perpetrator and the victim since section 377 was never intended to be used against sexual violence. In fact before reading down of the section, "consent" was irrelevant to the application of the provision. "Therefore any intended use of section 377 for non-consensual sexual conduct by survivors of sexual violence is bound to lead to problems of clarity in application," the study explained.

