Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "I'm finally glad I can say I'm not a criminal in this country anymore"

In a historic decision, India's Supreme Court has ruled that gay sex is no longer a criminal offence.

The ruling overturns a 2013 judgement that upheld a colonial-era law, known as section 377, under which gay sex is categorised as an "unnatural offence".

The court has now ruled discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a fundamental violation of rights.

Campaigners outside the court cheered and some broke down in tears as the ruling was handed down.

Although public opinion in India's biggest cities has been in favour of scrapping the law, there remains strong opposition among religious groups and in conservative rural communities.

But this ruling, from the top court, is the final say in the matter and represents a huge victory for India's LGBT community.

One activist outside the court told the BBC: "I hadn't come out to my parents until now. But today, I guess I have."

What have the judges said?

Thursday's decision was delivered by a five-judge bench headed by India's outgoing chief justice Dipak Misra and was unanimous.

Reading out the judgement, he said: "Criminalising carnal intercourse is irrational, arbitrary and manifestly unconstitutional."

Another judge, Indu Malhotra, said she believed "history owes an apology" to LGBT people for ostracising them.

Justice DY Chandrachud said the state had no right to control the private lives of LGBT community members and that the denial of the right to sexual orientation was the same as denying the right to privacy.

The ruling effectively allows gay sex among consenting adults in private.

What is section 377?

It is a 157-year-old colonial-era law which criminalises certain sexual acts as "unnatural offences" that are punishable by a 10-year jail term.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption A joyful reaction to the ruling at an NGO in Mumbai

The law punishes, in its own words, "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal".

While the statute criminalises all anal and oral sex, it has largely affected same-sex relationships.

Human rights groups say police have used the statute to harass and abuse members of the LGBT community.

'Recognising everyone's right to love'

Geeta Pandey, BBC News, Delhi

Even though it was rarely invoked when it involved consenting adults, section 377 could be - and was sometimes - used as a tool for harassment. It is not surprising then that campaigners are describing the verdict as a "new dawn for personal liberty".

But in a largely conservative India, where leaders of all religions have consistently opposed gay sex, it will still be a while before attitudes change and the community finds full acceptance.

But laws almost always play an important role in changing mindsets, and by recognising the community's right to love, the Supreme Court has restored the dignity denied to them for a very long time.

How did we get to this point?

It's been a tortuous route. A bid to repeal section 377 was initiated in 2001 and was batted between court and government until 2009, when the Delhi High Court ruled in favour of decriminalisation.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The power of "pink money" in India

Several political, social and religious groups then mobilised to restore the law and in 2013 the Supreme Court struck down the High Court ruling.

Anti-section 377 activists then submitted a "curative petition" - a formal request to review an earlier court order perceived as a "miscarriage of justice" - and in 2016 the Supreme Court decided to revisit its ruling.

What has the LGBT reaction been to the latest ruling?

One of joy given that the community has fought vigorously to strike down the law.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Activists say they are elated at the change although more needs to be done

Equal rights activists had argued that the very existence of such a law was proof of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

LGBT activist Harish Iyer told the BBC: "I'm absolutely elated. It's like a second freedom struggle where finally we have thrown a British law out of this country... I think the next step would be to get anti-discrimination laws in place, or anti-bullying laws."

Messages of support were posted on Twitter, including from film director Karan Johar:

Journalist Anna MM Vetticad said India had been saved from its shame:

How have political parties reacted?

The governing BJP party has said it would leave the decision to the Supreme Court.

However, one of its members said he was disappointed with the verdict.

Subramanian Swamy, known for making provocative comments, said: "It could give rise to an increase in the number of HIV cases."

Meanwhile, the main opposition Congress party has welcomed the ruling, saying they "hope this is the beginning of a more equal and inclusive society".

The UN has also welcomed the ruling, saying "sexual orientation and gender expression form an integral part of an individual's identity the world over".

What else was said in the ruling?

The court said other aspects of section 377 dealing with unnatural sex with animals and children would remain in force.

The judges also explicitly said that they only ruled on the constitutional validity of section 377 and were not looking at it in terms of other rights such as those related to marriage or inheritance.

It remains too early to say what this will translate to in the longer term.

Author and commentator Sandip Roy told the BBC that although the ruling was a cause for celebration, there were still hurdles to overcome, and a need for anti-discrimination laws.

"I think we would be foolish to think that this is the end of the fight," he said.

Where is homosexuality illegal?

The 2017 report from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (Ilga) lists 72 countries and territories where same-sex relationships are still criminalised, although that includes India before its latest ruling.

Most of them are in Africa, the Middle East and other parts of south Asia.

The report said homosexuality could still result in the death penalty in eight nations.</s>India’s top court has decriminalised gay sex, striking down a colonial-era law, sparking jubilation among LGBTQ and human rights groups across the country.

The Supreme Court in Delhi ruled that the Section 377 law, dating from 1861, was unconstitutional.

The five-member bench said the concept that “I am what I am” must be protected under India law, and that homosexuality was neither a crime nor a “mental disorder” as described in the “incomprehensible” 157-year-old laws.

Gay sex was punishable by up to 10 years in jail under the 1861 law. Although prosecution under Section 377 is not common, gay activists say police use the law to harass and intimidate members of their community.</s>India's Supreme Court on Thursday legalised consensual sexual relations between adults of the same gender as it partially struck down a British-era law that criminalised homosexuality.



Members of the LGBT community held tearful celebrations in cities across the South Asian nation of 1.25 billion people as the historic verdict was read out.

A five-judge Constitution bench of the Indian Supreme Court delivered its unanimous verdict in four separate opinions.



"The law had become a weapon for harassment for the LGBT community," said chief justice Dipak Misra as he quashed the cornerstone of Section 377, a law introduced by British rulers in 1861.

"Any discrimination on the basis of sexuality amounts to a violation of fundamental rights," he added in the ruling, which added India to a list of more than 120 countries where homosexuality is decriminalised.

Activists had been fighting the ban since the 1990s, suffering several court reverses before Thursday´s verdict.

The Delhi High Court decriminalised homosexuality in 2009, but the Supreme Court reinstated the ban in 2014 after an appeal by religious leaders.

According to official data, 2,187 cases under Section 377 were registered in 2016 under the category of "unnatural offences". Seven people were convicted and 16 acquitted.

The Indian government had opposed ending Section 377 but said ahead of the hearing that it would leave the decision to the "wisdom" of the Supreme Court.

It had warned, however, that judges should not change other aspects of Indian law, such as the right to marriage.</s>NEW DELHI – India’s top court has struck down a colonial-era law that makes homosexual acts punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The court gave its ruling Thursday on a petition filed by five people who challenged the law, saying they are living in fear of being harassed and prosecuted by police.

In 2009, a New Delhi High Court declared unconstitutional Section 377 of the law, which says intercourse between members of the same sex is against the order of nature. But the judgment was overturned by the Supreme Court, which says amending or repealing the law should be left to Parliament.

But the government left it to the court to decide the validity of the law dealing with consensual sexual acts between two adults.</s>[India], Sep. 6 (ANI): In a landmark judgement, after months of deliberations, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which criminalised homosexuality.

A five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud, Rohinton Fali Nariman, A M Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra, issued the verdict on a bunch of petitions filed to scrap the law. The bench had earlier reserved its verdict on July 17.

Criminalising gay sex is irrational and indefensible, observed the CJI while delivering the verdict. The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community has same rights as any other citizen, the CJI added. Respect for each other's rights, and others are supreme humanity, observed the bench unanimously, while saying that right to live with dignity is right.

Known as Section 377 of the IPC, the 157-year-old law criminalised certain sexual acts, terming them as 'unnatural offences', punishable by a 10-year jail term.

The law punished "carnal inter­course against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" and thus had bigger implications for same-sex relationships.

The legal battle to scrap the statute has gone on for several years.

The Delhi High Court, in 2009, decriminalised homosexuality. But in 2013, the Supreme Court restored the colonial-era law. Three years later, the top court agreed to hear the Section 377 petition once more.

Petitioners before the Supreme Court argued that the controversial law was not in tandem with a 2017 ruling that guaranteed the right to privacy to people.

During the hearing in July, the government told the apex court that it would leave to the wisdom of the court to decide the constitutional validity of Section 377. (ANI)</s>Chief Justice, in announcing verdict, notes law had been used as ‘weapon’ to harass LGBT community

India’s Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a colonial-era ban on gay sex at the center of years of legal battles.

“The law had become a weapon for harassment for the LGBT community,” Chief Justice Dipak Misra said as he announced the landmark verdict.

Section 377 of the Indian penal code, enacted by British rulers in 1861, banned “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”

Activists had been fighting the ban since the 1990s, suffering several court reverses before Thursday’s verdict which sparked celebrations among lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender groups across the vast South Asian nation.

Members of the LGBT community hugged each other and cried as news of the verdict spread. “I am speechless! It’s taken a long time to come but finally I can say I am free and I have equal rights as others,” said Rama Vij, a college student who wore a rainbow scarf.

Gay sex has long been taboo in conservative India—particularly in rural areas where homophobia is widespread.

The Delhi High Court decriminalized gay sex in 2009, but the Supreme Court reinstated legal sanctions in 2014 after a successful appeal by religious groups.

According to official data, 2,187 cases under Section 377 were registered in 2016 under the category of “unnatural offenses.” Seven people were convicted and 16 acquitted.</s>India's top court Thursday in a landmark decision lifted a 150-year-old ban on gay sex in the country.

A five-judge panel in India's Supreme Court unanimously overturned a 2013 ruling, and scrapped the colonial-era law that held gay sex as 'against nature'.</s>This post is part of Outward, Slate’s home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture. Read more here.

India’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the country’s colonial-era law criminalizing same-sex relations is unconstitutional, paving the way for LGBTQ equality in India and beyond.

The ruling comes after years of both advances and setbacks for LGBTQ people in India. The country’s so-called sodomy law, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, punished “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with up to life in prison. The Delhi High Court struck down that law in 2009, writing that it violated the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and equality guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. The court noted how criminalization of same-sex relations harms the lives of LGBTQ people.

But just as Indian activists had earned a hard-fought victory, some individuals and religious groups appealed the verdict. A two-judge panel of the Indian Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2013, ruling that amending the law was the responsibility of the legislature. The 2013 decision derided the Delhi High Court for “overlook[ing] that a miniscule fraction of the country’s population constitutes lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders and in [the] last more than 150 years less than 200 persons have been prosecuted.”

But on Thursday, a different five-judge constitutional bench of the Indian Supreme Court unanimously overruled the 2013 decision. Chief Justice Dipak Misra explained that “the law had become a weapon for harassment for the LGBT community,” adding that “any discrimination on the basis of sexuality amounts to a violation of fundamental rights.”

Spanning hundreds of pages and citing decisions from several countries, the Indian Supreme Court’s judgment is striking for its emphasis on the value of “inclusiveness”—broader in scope than the privacy-based arguments in earlier sodomy law cases such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas.

“The ideals and objectives enshrined in our benevolent Constitution can be achieved only when each and every individual is empowered and enabled to participate in the social mainstream and in the journey towards achieving equality in all spheres,” the Supreme Court of India stated. “This can be achieved only by inclusion of all and exclusion of none from the mainstream.”

“All human beings possess the equal right to be themselves instead of transitioning or conditioning themselves as per the perceived dogmatic notions of a group of people,” it went on. “Let us move from darkness to light, from bigotry to tolerance and from the winter of mere survival to the spring of life―as the herald of a New India―to a more inclusive society.”

In other words, LGBTQ Indians need not retreat from public life in order to be who they are, nor must they change who they are to appear in public. They are a part of Indian social fabric.

It is difficult to overstate the significance of this opinion for Indian and global LGBTQ rights. For India’s entire history since its independence in 1947, Section 377 has reinforced the idea that discrimination and mistreatment against LGBTQ people is acceptable in Indian society. Thursday’s judgment makes clear that targeting sexual minorities under the law is illegitimate and unconstitutional. More than 1.3 billion Indians are closer to a legal system where it is no longer illegal for them to be who they are.

And like India’s decolonization in 1947, this decision is likely to reverberate across South Asia and beyond. India’s Section 377 was the first colonial sodomy law included in a post-colonial penal code, and it became a model law for countries in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. For decades, LGBTQ activists in many of these countries have been fighting this colonial legacy. But the depiction of homosexuality and gender nonconformity as something “Western” has also long been an obstacle to LGBTQ equality in many countries. Thursday’s ruling dismantles the argument that LGBTQ people and rights are “foreign.” If India can move past its colonial legacy and treat its LGBTQ citizens with respect and dignity, why not other countries?

High-court rulings are seldom a panacea for societal discrimination, in India or elsewhere. Despite the Supreme Court of India’s ruling that transgender people have the right to self-identify as male, female, or third gender—and are entitled to benefit from affirmative action—a draft bill on transgender rights has lagged in Parliament. A 2017 report documented how police use vague laws to arrest and harass India’s sexual and gender minorities, with people living in poverty being most vulnerable to abuse. It is clear that a range of concrete steps, from police and legal services reforms to laws actively protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination, will be needed before LGBTQ Indians are not only equal, but can live equally.

Yet Thursday’s judgment marks a long-awaited hard-fought step toward LGTBQ equality under law.</s>NEW DELHI — In a groundbreaking victory for gay rights, India’s Supreme Court on Thursday struck down one of the world’s oldest laws criminalizing consensual gay sex, putting to rest a legal battle that stretched for many years and burying one of the most glaring vestiges of India’s colonial past.



After weeks of deliberation in the Supreme Court and decades of struggles by gay Indians, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the law, known as Section 377, was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.”

In court filings that stretched for hundreds of pages, more than two dozen petitioners related the emotional cost of living closeted lives, the bouts of depression, the abuse, the persecution, the blackmail and the coming-out journeys they had made while living under a shadow that made their most intimate behavior illegal.

“This ruling is hugely significant,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. India is the world’s second-most populous country, home to many millions of gay people, and Ms. Ganguly said the ruling could set a precedent for nations with similar colonial-era laws to end their “discriminatory, regressive treatment” of gay and transgender citizens.</s>A landmark judgment by India’s highest court has overturned a colonial-era law that criminalizes consensual gay sex, in a long-fought for victory for the LGBTQ community.
The Supreme Court of India strikes down Article 377, a colonial-era law which criminalized homosexuality, declaring it unconstitutional.