Manjunath Kiran / AFP / Getty Images An Indian LGBT activist holds a placard during a demonstration against the Supreme Court's reinstatement of Section 377, which bans gay sex in a law dating from India's colonial era, in Bangalore on Jan. 28, 2014

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected petitions from the government and gay rights activists to review an earlier decision that recriminalized gay sex in the country.

In December last year, the court overturned a historic 2009 Delhi High Court judgment decriminalizing homosexuality. It said that only Parliament could change section 377, an archaic law that bans gay sex as unnatural.

The Congress party-led government in New Delhi has been urged by activists to scrap section 377. However, the conservative main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, supports the ban, making legislative reform difficult.