Section 377 read down: When lovers of liberty rose to the occasion

Five years later, 6.9.2018 would go down as the high-water mark, of one modern India's most well-documented struggles

It took a woman Judge, Indu Malhotra to get the Supreme Court to ‘man-up’ and apologise for allowing Section 377 to stay on the statute books. An apology was long overdue. The Court’s previous ruling in Koushal v Naz (2013) had upheld the constitutionality of the provision. That Judgment was an abomination – both for its effect on the lives of citizens and its (spectacular lack of) legal reasoning. It turned the clock back on more than four years of equal citizenship that had been confirmed by the Delhi High Court. More significantly, it seemed to be the end of