“Not Every Parent Is Like Justice Leila Seth”: Madras High Court Remembers Late Judge Who Acknowledged And Supported Gay Son

Justice Leila Seth, who was the first Woman Chief Justice of a High Court, was often applauded for publicly supporting her son, who was homosexual.

When the Supreme Court in the case of Suresh Kumar Koushal & Anoither v. NAZ Foundation, overturned the Delhi High Court's decision in Naz Foundation case and upheld the validity of Section 377 IPC (criminalising homosexuality), Justice Leila had penned a heartfelt note for her son.

In her note, Justice Leila wrote,

“What makes life meaningful is love. The right that makes us human is the right to love. To criminalize the expression of that right is profoundly cruel and inhumane. To acquiesce in such criminalization or, worse, to recriminalize it is to display the very opposite of compassion. To show exaggerated deference to a majoritarian Parliament when the matter is one of fundamental rights is to display judicial pusillanimity, for there is no doubt that in the constitutional scheme it is the judiciary that is the ultimate interpreter,”

The Supreme Courts, later decriminalized homosexuality through its judgment in Navtej Singh Johar v.Union of India.

Justice Seth, who became the first woman to top the London Bar Exam in 1958, was also an IAS Officer. In 1978, she became the first woman Judge of the Delhi High Court, and in 1991, she was appointed as the Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court, becoming the first woman to ever hold the position of Chief Justice of a State High Court.

She was also one of the three members of the 2012 Justice Verma Committee, which was constituted in the aftermath of the horrendous Nirbhaya rape case, to suggest amendments for sternly dealing with sexual assault cases. She passed away on May 5th, 2017

The Madras High Court bench of Justice GR Swaminathan and Justice V Lakshminarayan recently remembered Justice Leila while dealing with a case where a homosexual woman was forcefully detained by her family due to her sexual orientation.

The habeas corpus petition was filed by the detenu's partner, seeking the court's intervention to set the detenu at liberty. The court noted that due to the continuing conservative nature of the society, the petitioner had referred to herself as the detenu's close friend instead of describing the true nature of her relationship with the detenu.

During the hearing of the plea, the court interacted with the detenu's mother who blamed the petitioner for leading her daughter 'astray'. The mother had even alleged that her daughter was a drug-addict and required counselling and rehabilitation.

The court however understood the mother's feelings and temperament. The court noted that noted that the detenu's mother was no Leila Seth and might have wanted her daughter to get married and settle down in life like any other heterosexual woman.

Though in vain, the court tried to make the mother understand that her daughter was entitled to choose a life for her own.

Ultimately, the court allowed the plea and gave liberty to the detenu to go with her partner. The court also asked the detenu's natal family not to interfere with her personal liberty. 

Also from the judgment- Supreme Court May Not Have Legalised Same-Sex Marriage But Such Couples Can Very Well Constitute A Family: Madras High Court

Click here to read the judgment