The US Supreme Court rulings that declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and allowed the resumption of same-sex marriages in California may influence the Indian Supreme Court which will soon announce its ruling on an appeal to the repeal of the country’s colonial era sodomy laws.

India’s Naz Foundation challenged the country’s Section 377 anti-sodomy law in the Dellhi High Court in 2009 and won and the Indian Government decided not to appeal the decision but a group of Indian religious figures decided to appeal.

Homosexuality has been legal in India since that 2009 decision but an appeals case has dragged on since then and it is not impossible that the Supreme Court justices could rule in favour of the religious groups.

Vikram Raghavan told Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal that Indian courts had often drawn on US precedents in deciding issues.

‘During its early years, our Supreme Court relied heavily on US precedents,’ Raghayan said, ‘Those citations are declining. But American decisions cast an unmistakable influence over Indian constitutional law.’

Raghavan pointed out that the Lawrence vs Texas case that struck down archaic sodomy laws across the US was cited in the 2009 Naz case by the Dehli High Court.

Writing for Livemint & The Wall Street Journal, Salil Tripathi noted the similarities between the Naz Supreme Court appeal case and the Prop 8 case.

In both cases lawmakers had refused to challenge a court ruling which struck down a ban and a 3rd party had stepped in to challenge instead.

Also in both cases, the 3rd party was not personally affected by the ban they wished to maintain.

‘The litigants are not acting in public interest in the traditional sense of representing the interests of the poor, vulnerable, and disenfranchised groups,’ Tripathi wrote.

‘They seek to impose their conservative values on the rest of the society. They have the right to believe those values. But Naz offers the court an opportunity to assert people’s rights and to recognize that courts exist to ensure that people who eat, drink, pray, worship, and love differently can do so, and that their rights are protected.’

‘In simple prose, the [US] Supreme Court told the petitioners that they had no business bringing the case, since they had no cause, nor suffered any injury. Arguably, the same principle can apply in the Naz case.’