NEW DELHI — India could be on the brink of repealing a 157-year-old law that criminalizes gay sex in what is one of the world’s largest and longest-running LGBT legal battles.

On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in a courtroom so full people barely had space to turn around, a bench of five judges from India’s highest court began hearing arguments against a law known as Section 377. The law was introduced under British rule in 1861 and states that all sexual activity apart from heterosexual intercourse is "against the order of nature."

If the Supreme Court of India strikes down the law, it would transform gay rights in a country of more than 1 billion people.

But the ruling could have huge repercussions in other countries — particularly the Commonwealth, an association of countries made up mostly of former territories of the British Empire — where LGBT activists are fighting similar legal battles against colonial-era penal codes.

Previously, the challenges to Section 377 have come through curative petitions — a special plea in which petitioners ask Supreme Court judges to review a matter even though the final judgment on it has been passed, on account of that judgment having violated principles of natural justice.

The list of petitioners includes well-known figures such as dancer Navtej Johar, trans activist Akkai Padmashali, chef Ritu Dalmia, and a hotelier named Keshav Suri.

But there are also new petitioners representing the broad spectrum of society and queer experience, such as HIV activist Gautam Yadav and Arif Jaffar, a 47-year old man who was sent to police custody and tortured for over a month for his sexual orientation under Section 377. (Jaffar has been fighting a separate case against the officers who arrested him for the last 18 years).

Activists say the most hopeful part of the latest fight against Section 377 is that it is no longer limited to allies or members of the community standing in as proxies for others who are too afraid to come out. Read more via Buzzfeed