India's Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a final petition against a law that criminalizes homosexuality.

 The court heard a "curative petition" - meant to "cure" an earlier court order perceived as a "miscarriage of justice". Three senior judges said the 2013 ruling would be re-examined by a larger bench of judges, in a move that has been welcomed by activists.

According to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), a 155-year-old colonial-era law, a same-sex relationship is an "unnatural offence".

In deeply conservative India, homosexuality is a taboo and many people still regard same-sex relationships as illegitimate.