Bigger India
India’s Top Court Reviews British-era Ban on Homosexuality
India's top court on Tuesday began reviewing petitions against a colonial-era ban on homosexuality, in the latest chapter of a legal tussle between social and religious conservatives and more liberal Indians.
Section 377 of the penal code, a relic from 1860s British legislation, bans gay acts as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and allows for jail terms of up to life, although prosecutions are rare.
In 2009 the Delhi High Court effectively decriminalised gay sex, saying a ban violated fundamental rights, but the Supreme Court reinstated it in 2013 after religious groups successfully appealed.