Petitioner Of Section 377 Menaka Guruswamy And Arundhati Katju Open Up As Couple
- Jul 20, 2019,
- Updated Jul 20, 2019, 1:43 AM IST
New Delhi, July 20, 2019:
Supreme Court lawyers Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju who took up the fight against the Section 377 the Indian Penal Code have finally opened up as a couple.
Section 377 the Indian Penal Code or the draconian law was introduced in 1864 during the British rule of India that criminalized homosexuality claiming sexual activities "against the order of nature" illegal.
The two layers’ fight led to the landmark judgment in 2018, as the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
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Earlier this year, Menaka and Arundhati were named in TIME magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world for 2019 for their fight in the apex court against Section 377.
Menaka Guruswamy is a Rhodes scholar who has an LLM degree from the Harvard Law School as well as a D.Phil from Oxford University. She is a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin (2016-17) and also a visiting faculty at several prestigious schools such as Columbia Law School, Yale Law School, and New York University School of Law. On the other hand, Arundhati Katju is also a James Kent scholar hold an LLM degree from Columbia.
It is to be mentioned that the two lawyers are not the first ones to open up about their orientation this year. Recently, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, who currently bagged the title of national champion in the women's 100 metres event, also came to the world as gay, becoming India's first openly queer female athlete.