The pair were slapped and hit when they attended their local mosque before being publicly shamed in front of thousands of people.
Following the shaming, the man contacted members of his family who advised he leave the city. His lover did the same and was given similar advice.
The tribunal said the pair booked a hotel nearby but were evicted by staff shortly after when it was discovered the men were in a sexual relationship.
Posters had been put up around the town with photos of the couple, identifying them as homosexuals and with messages to avoid them. The largest of these posters was affixed to a bus stop outside their hotel.
After fleeing to another hotel in a different city the men discovered that a political party in their hometown had asked police to arrest them and return them to be punished, the decision said.
The man was eventually granted a New Zealand visa in July 2018, and later that year he lodged an application for protected refugee status, which was declined by the Refugee Status Unit.
His lover was also granted a visa but left the country in 2020 and moved to Dubai.
The man's appeal to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal said it was still too dangerous for him to return to India and he believed Muslim groups and political parties in his hometown wanted to make an example of him.
He said as recently as January pamphlets were distributed in his hometown showing his name, photo and details of the "atrocities" he'd committed, claiming he would be punished when he was caught.
The man also claimed that simply settling in another area of India wasn't possible as he doesn't speak Hindi: the majority language in India.
"He belongs to a religion (Islam) that finds same-sex relationships abhorrent, and yet he is part of that religion," his lawyer said in submissions to the tribunal.
"He would either be isolated from other Muslims and not fit in elsewhere, or if he contacted Muslims in the area in which he relocated, it would be difficult to avoid questions about his origins."
The submission goes on to state that in order to find employment or accommodation back in India he would need identification which would then make it easy to trace his origins.
"At best, his future would likely be existing on the margins of society and finding illegal work in, for example, the sex industry."
The tribunal was sceptical about the legitimacy of the most-recent pamphlets produced earlier this year.
"It appeared convenient that the appellant was able to find such evidence some time after the fact from unknown associates.
"It indicated the possibility that this material could have been produced solely to bolster the appellant's refugee claim."
However, a person associated to counsel travelled to the man's home village and was given permission to access the political party's documents and was able to verify the pamphlets did in fact exist and hadn't been fabricated by the man claiming refugee status.
The tribunal found there was a slow and incremental improvement in the situation for LGBTQI+ people in India.
However, despite any improvements in the general position, it accepted the man remained at risk of persecutory harm.
"If the appellant were to return to India, it is inevitable that his reputation will proceed him," the tribunal said.
"He and his partner were publicly outed in 2018 and he has been told in no uncertain terms by people in their village that they found his relationship abhorrent.
"Some locals may also have been horrified by the openness of the two men in returning to the village to explicitly ask their families' support for their relationship.
"These circumstances make the two men, as the appellant has stated, targets for ongoing scapegoating in their community."
The tribunal found the man had a well-founded fear of being persecuted in India and was entitled to be recognised as a refugee under the Refugee Convention.
