The judgment in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India is a landmark judicial decision delivered by the Supreme Court of India on September 6, 2018, which partially decriminalized homosexuality in India. The case challenged the constitutional validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, a colonial-era law that criminalized "carnal intercourse against the order of nature".
Section 377 was drafted by Thomas Macaulay around 1838 and enacted in 1860, modeled on the British Buggery Act of 1533, which broadly criminalized anal penetration, bestiality, and homosexuality. The problem it solved for the British was to impose a moral code by criminalizing sexual acts deemed "unnatural".
The Navtej Singh Johar judgment, delivered by a five-judge Constitution Bench, unanimously held that Section 377 IPC was unconstitutional "in so far as it criminalises consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex". The ratio decidendi was that criminalizing consensual sex between adults was "irrational, arbitrary and manifestly unconstitutional". The Court found that the provision violated the fundamental rights to equality (Article 14), non-discrimination (Article 15), freedom of expression (Article 19), and life and personal liberty (Article 21).
This judgment overturned the Supreme Court's own 2013 ruling in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation, which had upheld the constitutionality of Section 377. The Navtej Singh Johar decision is closely connected to the 2017 judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, which recognized the right to privacy as a fundamental right, including the right to make intimate choices regarding sexual orientation. The judgment clarified that Section 377 remains in force for non-consensual sexual acts, sex with minors, and bestiality.