Gay rights leaders expressed disappointment in the ruling, where gays and transgendered have often struggled against prejudice in a conservative and deeply religious society.
“It appears to be a setback,” said Anand Grover, a lawyer representing the LGBT community. “I can tell you the fight is not over. This is a constitutional fight. It will continue.”
In 2009, the New Delhi high court had for the first time decriminalized homosexuality , overturning a 1861 British colonial law known as “Section 377” that had deemed homosexual acts “against the order of nature,” and punishable with up to 10 years in jail. Wednesday the Supreme Court said that the law was valid and was up to the nation’s Parliament to change.
The 2009 decision had been celebrated as a landmark verdict for India’s gay community. The Delhi court had ruled that the age-old law was discriminatory and “a violation of fundamental rights.”
"It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual," the Delhi court had written in a lengthy judgment in 2009.
But some religious and social groups had appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court.
“All the religious communities — Muslims, Christians and Hindus — had said that this is unnatural sex,” said Ejaz Maqbool, a lawyer representing the petitioners. “Today the Supreme Court held that the earlier judgment was wrong. Tomorrow if the nation feels and if the parliament feels this is a provision that needs to be removed from the Indian penal code, then they can."