New Delhi: A historic judgement was passed by the Supreme Court on Thursday under which Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code has been struck down. The judgement was delivered by the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra along with Justices Rohinton Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra. Section 377 refers to 'unnatural offences' and says whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to pay a fine.


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Several Bollywood celebs including Abhishek Bachchan, Karan Johar and Arjun Kapoor have reacted to this historic judgement.


Check them out here:















The issue of section 377 was first raised by an NGO, Naaz Foundation, which had in 2001 approached the Delhi High Court that had decriminalised sex between consenting adults of the same gender by holding the penal provision "illegal".


Although the Delhi High Court had struck down the provision in 2009, it was revived by the Supreme Court in 2013 in a widely criticised judgment by a Division Bench of Justice G S Singhvi and Justice S J Mukhopadhyaya. However, the issue resurrected in July 2016, when a fresh petition was filed.