A Delhi court has ratified that homosexual sex between two adults is not a criminal offense, as long as the act comes with consent from both parties.

Sexual intercourse between two people of the same sex was punishable in India with a 10-year prison sentence, according to a colonial law dating back 148 years that declares it as an “unnatural offense“. The new ruling nullifies that.

The court ruled that laws that condemned homosexual acts were discriminatory, and “violated human rights“.

India has long been known to be largely discriminatory and persecutive of homosexuals, and human rights activists see this new motion to be the first step in a more liberal India.