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Camera: Garvita Khybri
Editor: Rahul Sanpui
History was made. On 6 September 2018, the Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark judgment, decriminalising a 157-year-old British-era law that criminalised even consensual homosexual relations.
It is no longer a criminal offence to be gay in India!
Four days of hearings on the matter were held from 10-17 July 2018. The Constitution Bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra as well as Justices Rohinton Nariman, DY Chandrachud, AM Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra delivered a unanimous judgment.
“First step towards vanquishing enemies of prejudice and injustice has to be taken”, read the judgment. “We must get rid of prejudice and discrimination. Concept of constitutional morality creates responsibility of State to protect. Fidelity to constitutional morality must not be confused with popular sentiment.”
But two years into the judgment, what has changed for the community on ground?
Despite the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the community feels that the laws don’t protect them in an effective manner.
The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s ‘Queering the Law: Making Indian Laws LGBT+ Inclusive’ is a step forward. It charts central laws that discriminate against LGBT+ persons by operating in the male-female binary and/or on the assumption that a relationship can only be between men and women. It makes a case for legal inclusion in such laws and engages with questions of what the way forward for inclusion might be.
The 6 September 2018 judgment had decriminalised consensual homosexual relationships in India. Let's hope that equality in all forms reaches the community soon as well.
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Published: 05 Sep 2019,09:19 PM IST