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The Supreme Court delivered an historic judgment wherein it legalized the gay sex. It decriminalized the part of 158-year-old colonial law under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code on the ground that it violates the right to equality. With this bold step, India has joined 25 other countries where homosexuality is legal.
Despite of the above achievement, 72 countries and territories still continue to criminalize gay sex, including some of the countries where even the relationship with women are outlawed.
According to the report of International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, there are eight countries where homosexuality results in death penalty while in some such acts result in a prison sentence.
The bench referred to the part of the section which criminalizes the consensual unnatural sex, as irrational and arbitrary. The activists have undertaken a long journey to decriminalize same sex relationships.
The first victory was reflected when the Delhi High Court in its judgment in the year 2009 decriminalized homosexuality but this judgment was quashed and the order was held not maintainable. The Lok Sabha also voted against the introduction of bill to decriminalize homosexuality which was introduced by Shashi Tharoor, indicating that the NDA government was not in a hurry to legalize homosexuality. Thus, several activists, journalists, etc., approached the Supreme Court which agreed to reconsider the issue.It was claimed that the right to sexuality or the choice of partner is provided to them under Part 3 of the Constitution and therefore Section 377 violates such rights. Subsequently, the court upheld the right to privacy in 2017 and stated that sexual orientation is an essential aspect of privacy.
Thus, the bench struck down the part of Section 377 as being violative of the right to equality. The decision in the case of Suresh Kaushal was also overturned by the Court wherein unnatural sex was gain criminalized.Dalmia stated that his belief in the judiciary system of India has been restored and it can be seen that the freedom of choice, speech and rights still exist.
Some of the countries where gay sex has been legalized are Argentina, Greenland, South Africa, etc. and now India.
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