For more than 150 years, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code has been in place making same-sex relationships illegal and punishable by life in prison. However, just this month, the Supreme Court of India, in its Navtej Singh Johar vs. Union of India judgment, declared certain parts of Section 377 unconstitutional, thereby legalizing consensual same-sex relationships. Pranav Rai, CIPP/A, writes Section 377 was found to violate LGBT individuals' "right to privacy, dignity, equality, liberty and freedom of expression as enshrined in Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India." In this Privacy Tracker post, Rai writes about the path to legalizing same-sex relationships and the how the Supreme Court's 2017 ruling declaring privacy a fundamental right was instrumental in the judgment.
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