Why LGBT community is celebrating verdict

“Sexual orientation is an essential attribute of privacy. Discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation is deeply offensive to the dignity and self-worth of the individual,” the Supreme Court said on Thursday. Those words has buoyed India’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community (LGBT), who are criminalised under a colonial-era law and battle everyday violence and bias.

Members of the community across cities hailed the verdict and said it would boost their fight against a 2013 top court judgment that left it to Parliament to scrap Section 377 that bans “unnatural sex”.

India is one of a handful of modern democracies that criminalise same-sex relationships and LGBT people often face blackmail, threats and violence as a result. In 2009, the Delhi high court read down Section 377 to exclude consenting adults but it was overturned in 2013 by the SC.

The judgment, however, attacked the reasoning of the 2013 decision, saying the protection of sexual orientation lay at the core of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. “That a miniscule fraction of the country’s population constitutes lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders is not a sustainable basis to deny the right to privacy,” the top court observed.

This, lawyers said, would help in the curative petition against the 2013 verdict. Activists also pointed out that the SC verdict would have a wideranging impact protecting the privacy of LGBT individuals.