Gay sex is not a crime in India anymore. The Supreme Court in a landmark judgement on Thursday partially struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), a 157-year-old law that criminalised consensual unnatural sex.

The five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had reserved its verdict on July 17 after hearing various stakeholders for four days, including gay rights activists.

LGBT activists welcomed the verdict and hoped it will improve rights for the homosexual community in the country.

To discuss this further, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Arvind Datar, counsel for one of the petitioners.

It was a tremendous team effort, there were a lot of other lawyers who also appeared for the cause, Datar said, adding that the LGBTQ community was criminalised before today’s historic judgement.

"What we were able to demonstrate is that Section 377 was drafted in 1860 and has a history going back to the 15-16 the century where sodomian homosexuality was taken to be as completely unacceptable and that is why the section uses the word carnal sex intercourse against the order of nature,” he said.

Next Steps

For a start because of this judgement, suppose one is in public employment, one cannot be dismissed from service on ground that you are having the same sex relationship, neither can private or public sector deny you employment on this ground, similarly for housing and other rights they are now on the same footing as everyone of us, Datar added.

Secondly, the other issues that would loom on horizon would be marriage and adoption, he said adding that the reference to the constitutional bench was on a very limited point.

First Published:Sept 6, 2018 6:56 PM IST