In a major union cabinet reshuffle on Thursday, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs & Culture And Cabinet Minister of Law and Justice, Arjun Ram Meghwal replaced Kiren Rijiju as the Law Minster. Kiren Rijiju has been assigned the portfolio of the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
In 2012, the new Union Law Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Bikaner MP Arjun Ram Meghwal had presented a private member bill titled Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill 2012 in the Lok Sabha against the Delhi High Court judgment of 2009 which termed section 377 of the Indian Penal Code unconstitutional and decriminalised gay sex. However, the bill was not discussed until next year in the lower house.
The Delhi High Court in the Naz Foundation vs Government Of NCT Of Delhi had ruled that provision of criminalising consensual sexual acts of adults in private under Section 377 of the IPC violative Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.
However, the Supreme Court upheld Section 377 and set aside the high court order in 2013. The Supreme Court held that homosexuality or unnatural sex between two consenting adults under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is illegal and will continue to be an offence. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadaya set aside the Delhi High Court’s verdict decriminalising homosexuality and added that this provision did not suffer from any constitutional infirmity.
In light of the judgement, the BJP leader brought Lok Sabha’s attention to his proposed legislation. He also held discussions across his constituency over the issue and maintained people were unanimously opposed to de-criminalising gay sex. “The main point of my bill is that the honourable Delhi High Court’s decision is not in accordance with Indian culture,” he asserted.
Notably, he qualified Rajasthan Public Service Commission Administrative Services Exam in 1982 and was promoted to Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1999 batch in the Rajasthan cadre and worked in many significant administrative positions including District Collector and District Magistrate.
In 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalised consensual gay sex under section 377 of the IPC.
Arjun Ram Meghwal took voluntary retirement from IAS in order to join politics. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 representing the Bikaner constituency and got re-elected from there in 2014 and 2019.
During his 2nd term as a member of the parliament, he was Chief Whip of the BJP in Lok Sabha. The speaker of Lok Sabha also nominated him as the Chairman of the House Committee, in the lower house. In May 2019, Meghwal became Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.