Indian government asks supreme court to review ban on gay sex

The Indian government Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court, asking it to review its decision to make gay sex illegal in this country. "The government has filed the review petition on Section 377 in the Supreme Court today. Let's hope the right to personal choices is preserved," Indian Law Minister Kapil Sibal tweeted. The apex court had on Dec. 11 reinstated a 153-year-old law -- Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code -- which criminalises homosexuality, overturning a landmark ruling of the Delhi High Court decriminalizing gay sex more than four years back. The government's decision to file the review petition in the apex court, saying it believed it "violated the principle of equality", came in the wake of massive outrage in India against the ruling. Ruling Congress party chief Gandhi described the Supreme Court ruling as "an archaic, unjust law" and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that the ruling had taken India "back to 1860".