PUNE: Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra while delevering his speech at Dr Patangrao Kadam Memorial Public Lecture Series at Bharti Vidyapeeth in Pune, said “balancing of rights” is sometimes a difficult task.
Dipak Misra, who among the five-member constitution bench that decriminalised consensual gay sex and finished section 377 making homosexuality legal across the country.
There is no hierarchical order in rights. A particular fundamental right cannot exist in isolation,” he said, adding that everyone has a right to speak out but no one can use this right for defamation. In a democratic set-up every right matters, no right is absolute, Chief Justice of India added.
In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court scrapped the controversial section 377 a 158-year-old colonial law on consensual gay sex. Criminalising gay sex is irrational and indefensible,” said Chief Justice Dipak Misra, who headed the five judge bench hearing the case.
