This particular ruling isn't binding outside Delhi. It was a two judge panel. So there's still some dispute as to when, or how the issue might be resolved across the nation. There's a new government in place, so it'll be interesting to watch how the issue plays out. The previous government was against decriminalization. No mention of a reaction by fundamentalist Muslim clergy. The criminalization is actually attributed to British Colonialism, as that's when the law went into effect - 1860. As they say, the wheels of justice grind slow.
An Indian court has ruled for the first time that consensual gay sex is not a crime, signalling an historic breakthrough for the country’s largely closet homosexual community, as well as anti-HIV/Aids campaigners.
Under a British colonial law, introduced by Lord Macaulay in 1860, homosexual intercourse is ranked alongside paedophilia and bestiality as “sex against nature” and punishable by up to ten years in prison.
India is one of the few democracies in the world to still have such a law.
But the Delhi High Court ruled today that applying the law - known as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code - to consenting adults violated the Constitution and international human rights conventions.
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