The Centre has told the Supreme Court it will let the court decide whether or not to decriminalise gay sex.
The court had on Tuesday begun hearing a clutch of petitions against Section 377, which says homosexuality is a crime.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Wednesday told the five-judge constitution bench hearing the petitions that the government would leave the matter of the constitutionality of Section 377 to the court.
Section 377 had been struck down by the Delhi High Court in 2009. The court called it “unconstitutional”.
But the judgement was set aside by the Supreme Court in 2013, which said the onus to change the law lay with Parliament.
In January this year, the country’s top court agreed to hear a clutch of petitions which said the law had led to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
