Section 377 lawyers in relationship

New Delhi: On September 6, 2018, India became a more equal country after a five-judge panel of the Supreme Court struck down the colonial era-sodomy laws encapsulated in Section 377 of the IPC that made consensual gay sex illegal.

On the forefront of the fight were two lawyers, Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju, the advocates who represented the five original petitioners in court and fought the case.

Now, almost a year after the astounding victory, the duo have come out on international media as a couple.

In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, the two attorneys admitted that they were indeed a couple and that the victory was not just a professional benchmark but also a personal win.

While speaking about the human impact of the decision to repeal Section 377, Zakaria asked if the case was much more personal to them as the two were not just partners in court but also a couple.

In response, both Guruswamy and Katju chuckled and agreed that they were. "That's right. The loss in 2013 was a loss as lawyers, a loss as citizens. It was a personal loss," said Guruswamy.

"It is not nice to be a 'criminal' who has to go back to court as a lawyer to argue other cases," she added. Guruswamy and Katju had also argued the case in court in 2013 when the Supreme Court upheld the criminalisation of Section 377 after it was decriminalised in 2009 by Delhi high court.

"We had a court where we practised as lawyers ... and this court had just told us that gay people were second class citizens", said Katju, who added that it was very difficult.

Guruswamy and Katju earned international acclaim after the historic SC judgment in 2018 after they convinced the very court that had rejected their pleas in 2013 to repeal the colonial-era law.

The duo were even named by TIME magazine in their list of 100 most influential people of 2019.