Facts:
A petition was filed challenging a recruitment notification issued the Government of
Andhra Pradesh for being violative of Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 as it did not provide
for separate reservation for transgender persons.
Court Decision and Reasoning:
The Court held that not providing separate categorization for transgender persons was
arbitrary on the part of the State, and therefore went against the mandate of Article
14. The Court adopted the dicta of NALSA, which directed the Centre and States to
take steps to treat transgender persons as a socially and educationally backward class
(SEBC) of citizens and extend the benefits of reservations in educational institutions
and public employment to them. Reservation as a SEBC is vertical reservation, while
reservation based on gender identity is horizontal reservation. Many High Court
decisions like those in the cases of as Jeeva and Swapna have directed the
government to provide reservation to transgender persons based on their gender
identity and not for being SEBC. The Court here disagreed with this approach and
reiterated that in NALSA the Supreme Court had asked for transgender persons to be
treated as a SEBC and should therefore be receiving vertical reservation. The Court
also held that after NALSA, neither the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights)
Act 2019 Act nor the Rules provided any reservation to transgender persons, except
providing access to employment. Therefore, in the absence of any steps taken by the
State, failure of its instrumentalities to provide reservation to transgender persons
does not make the notification invalid because the obligation to provide reservations
was on the Centre and State.
Significance:
This is once again a negative judgement as it did not consider the claim for horizontal
reservations for transgender persons, which has been provided for by Karnataka and
did not impose any accountability on the State government for its failure to provide
reservations.