Khandu vs Emperor, AIR, Lahore, 1934

Khandu vs Emperor was an unusual criminal case reported in the All India Reporter (AIR) which took place in 1933 in Lahore, India.

Khandu was a convict who, while serving his jail sentence, committed a sexual act with an animal. A fellow convict, Allah Yar, caught Khandu with his penis up the nostril of a bullock that was tied to a tree.

During the trial, the judge rejected Khandu's appeal to reduce his sentence (five years of rigorous imprisonment) and stated that “he (Khandu) showed a highly depraved nature and set a degrading example of sexual immorality.”

This case has often been cited to show the absurd ambit of Section 377 of India's Penal Code which criminalises "carnal intercourse against the order of nature".

Sodomy became a constitutive element of Section 377 along with the possibility of other sexual acts. The basis for determining what these other acts could be was not a simple process. It involved an elaborate interpretation of carnal intercourse, penetration and the order of nature.

The courts used two essential parameters under Section 377:


 * Existence of penetrative intercourse with an orifice.


 * Impossibility of conception, thus against the order of nature.

To determine whether there could have been penetration, the judges defined intercourse as, “a temporary visitation to one organism by another... The primary object of the visiting organisation is to obtain euphoria by means of a detent of the nerves consequent on the sexual crisis”. Thus as long as there is an orifice (in this instance, the mouth) which can envelop the “penis” and provide sexual climax, it qualifies as carnal intercourse.

The Khandu vs Emperor case, although bizarre, fulfilled the requirement of penetration with an orifice and was therefore chargeable under Section 377.

Although no cases have been cited, a commentary by judge Dr. Hari Singh Gour stated that women, too, should be convicted if they used inanimate objects to penetrate animals.

=See also=
 * Section 377 and the dignity of Indian homosexuals
 * Section 377A of the Penal Code (Singapore)
 * Section 377 of the Penal Code (Singapore)

=References=
 * Khandu vs Emperor AIR 1934 Lahore 261, p 262.
 * Ruth Vanita, Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society.

=Acknowledgements=

This article was written by Roy Tan.