Historical judgement of decriminalization of homosexuality was 50 minutes long

It took nearly 50 minutes for the Supreme Court to read out its judgment deciding the fate of 'minuscule fraction' of persons belonging to LGBTQ community as it struck down the 158-year-old colonial law criminalizing consensual unnatural sex.

A five-judge constitution bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud, and Indu Malhotra had assembled at around 11.33 am and started pronouncing the judgment at 11.35 am in a packed courtroom.

The maximum time was taken by the Chief Justice to pronounce the verdict and the entire process ended at around 12.25 am.

The CJI, who penned the verdict for himself and on behalf of Justice Khanwilkar, made it clear at the outset that there were four separate judgments but the views were "concurring".

The CJI read out the operative part of the verdict and the conclusion arrived at by him.

He was followed by Justice Nariman, Chandrachud and Malhotra.

Justice Malhotra took the minimum time to read out the judgment and she pronounced only the concluding paragraphs of her 50-page verdict.