KEY FACTS:
The petitioner applied to the Court to grant reservations for transgender people in the Joint CSIR-UGC NET. This examination is required to receive a Junior Research Fellowship which is necessary to receive an M.Phil. or Ph.D. in various subjects. The petitioner also requested that reservations, age relaxations and fee concessions be granted for transgender persons as they are for other reserved categories.
ISSUE AND DECISION:
The issue before the Court was whether the examining authority can be ordered to provide such requirements.
The Court ruled that the ‘non-grant of such reservation, age relaxation and fee concession to transgender person in the Joint CSIR-UGC NET Examinations is unacceptable and patently violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India’. It noted that the UGC had already made a provisions for this, but it had not been implemented. It ordered the examining authority to implement it immediately at all levels of the examination.
SIGNIFICANCE:
The judgment reiterated the importance of not just reservations for the transgender community but also age relaxations and fee concessions for them in their examinations. In circumstances where provision had been made for reservations, age relaxations and fee concessions, its implementation has to be enforced.