Episode 10 - A Five-Judge Bench 377: The legal battle against India’s anti-LGBTQ law

Many fresh voices enter the arena: using Article 32, five highly accomplished individuals (Navtej Singh Johar and others) and 20 students from IIT submit their petitions to the Supreme Court. They are represented by Menaka Guruswamy and Arundati Katju. We meet Saurabh Kirpal, a lawyer on their team who explains to us how a fresh Article 32 petition differs from the curative petitions that remained pending.

And then Puttuswamy happened: the 2017 case which ruled that the Aadhar biometric ID system violated Article 21 of the constitution. The judgment went through and corrected a long list of landmark cases that involved privacy, and one of them was Suresh Kumar Kaushal.

So in January 2018, Chief Justice Dipak Mishra hand-picks the new petition and the 377 battle is reignited. A court date is set: June 6, 2018.

Show Notes
All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators.

The following guests appeared in this episode:


Shyam Divan
Saurabh Kirpal, lawyer
Ritu Dalmia
Jayna Kothari
Anand Grover
Anand Vasudevan, IIT alum

References

Arundhati Katju and Menaka Guruswamy Time 100 interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqsEtc8dq5c
Katju and Guruswamy at the Oxford Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lp6H4YYN-k
CNBC TV18 news clip Supreme Court reopening hearing on S377: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz98mgrXmz8
Al Jazeera news clip on Puttaswamy verdict: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYkWqWWvv7s
NDTV news clip about Puttaswamy’s implications for privacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgDz2uGMjCE
Republic World news clip about Supreme Court judges speaking out against the then Chief Justice of India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcoXml36tss
Ritu Dalmia’s interview with NDTV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV8RXUSg4BE
Keshav Suri interview with ET Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsWlFbX348Y

Mirror Now news clip about IIT petitioners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nam0m8SsUpI