Constitutional Morality and LGBTQ+ Rights in India: Post-Navtej Singh Johar Developments

Navtej Singh Johar v. Supreme Court of India, a landmark case of the Supreme Court of India in 2018. Union of India is a landmark in the Indian constitutional law and human rights history. The decision not only overturned the obsolete Section 377 in the Indian Penal Code, but determined the constitutional morality over the social one, which had long predominated. This paper evaluates the course of the LGBTQ+ rights in India following this judgment. It states that although the foundation of legal and moral grammar of equality was launched by Navtej Singh Johar, the post-2018 epoch has been characterized by a complicated and demanding process of extending this grammar of the inward space of decriminalization to the exterior space of positive civil rights. In the initial part of the paper, a literature review shall be carried out to determine the doctrinal foundation of the Navtej verdict and its understanding of constitutional morality (Katju, 2018; Manupatra, n.d.). Then goes to an account of further events, such as the major legal struggles over marriage equality, the legislative reaction to this through the Transgender Persons Act, and the changing case law, culminating with recent judicial and policy actions in 2025 (Insights on India, 2025; Washington Blade, 2025). This paper concludes that what is being evidenced by the post-Navtej landscape is a judiciary that is struggling with the implications of its own precedent in the challenge of ensuring that the promise of dignity and equality is not just that of existence, but that of full, participative citizenship.