Five Supreme Court judges - CJI Dipak Misra and Justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra - laboured for close to two months before erasing criminality from Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which had terrorised the LGBTQ community for 158 years by branding their natural sexual instincts as a crime and forcing society to believe it was taboo.The reaction to the SC's verdict on Thursday was instinctive and instantaneous. A shower of love washed away the social stigma fastened on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queer community members. It erased the community's pain of five years as in 2013, a two-judge SC bench had restored criminality attached to their sexual preferences under Section 377.In front of the CJI's court, they kissed their partners and celebrated. It was a strange experience to witness men kissing men and women locking lips with women, unmindful of a crowd of wide-eyed litigants and lawyers around them with the SC's dome of justice as the backdrop. A traditional couple could feel shy kissing in public but when people get liberated from centuries-old bondage caging their basic sexual instincts, celebratory emotions breach society's boundaries for intimacy.From ancient times till the advent of British rule, Indian society appeared to have accepted LGBTQ community's sexual preferences as evident from depiction of erotic acts on stone sculptures in some temples. If the temples tell us tales of ancient society, the history of litigation by LGBTQ community reveals a struggle through a roller-coaster ride in courts.The Buggery Act of 1533 in the UK and Wales executed or jailed for life persons convicted of serious offences under the law. Of the 56 executed between 1806 and 1861, the last two - James Pratt and John Smith - were done to death on November 27, 1835. Two years after execution of Pratt and Smith, the British assigned Thomas Babington Macaulay the task of drafting the Indian Penal Code, consensual sexual relations between same-sex adults in 1967 but Section 377 continued in India.To anchor their emotions after rescuing them from the sea of fear, the SC took many a year, laying the foundation for final relief brick by brick. It started probably from 2004 when a Delhi HC bench of Justices B C Patel and B D Ahmed dismissed as academic a petition filed by Naz Foundation in 2001 questioning the constitutional validity of Section 377. The Law Commission's recommendation in 2001 for repeal of Section 377 did not impress either the government or the HC.An SC bench of Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice P P Naolekar, realising the injustice towards the LGBTQ community, directed the HC on February 3, 2006, to hear Naz Foundation's petition afresh. Rehearing the petition led to a remarkable judgment by Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar, who on July 2, 2009, discarded the prudish judicial approach towards Section 377 and decriminalised it.From a high, the LGBTQ community suffered heartbreak when on December 13, 2013, an SC bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya, in Suresh Koushal case, struck down the Delhi HC decision and restored the rigour of Section 377.Within months of the Suresh Koushal judgment, on April 15, 2014, an SC bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and AK Sikri, in NALSA judgment, felt the need of a rainbow to describe the varied world of sexuality, which defied depiction only in black and white. Though the focus was to recognise transgenders as the third gender, it surely turned the wheel of judicial thinking a little in favour of LGBTQs.A nine-judge bench in K S Puttaswamy case on August 24 last year ruled that sexual orientation of an individual was acomponent of right to privacy , which in turn was part of the most important right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.Justice Chandrachud, writing the main judgment in the privacy case, said, "Sexual orientation is an essential attribute of privacy. Discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation is deeply offensive to the dignity and self-worth of the individual. Equality demands that the sexual orientation of each individual in society must be protected on an even platform. The right to privacy and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution."Clearing the deck for decriminalisation of Section 377, as was eventually done on September 6 by a five-judge bench in Navtej Singh Johar case, Justice Chandrachud said, "That a minuscule fraction of the country's population constitutes lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders (as observed in the two-judge bench judgment in Suresh Koushal case) is not a sustainable basis to deny the right to privacy." Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul fully agreed with this and both placed a ladder securely for the five-judge bench to climb the peak and declare independence in sexual expression for the LGBTQ community.