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Synopsis

The Madras High Court on Tuesday asked the Tamil Nadu government to explore the feasibility of introducing 1% horizontal reservation for the Transgender community across all caste categories in both education and public employment.

The bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy directed Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram to seek instructions regarding a potential policy decision and respond by March 4.

The order was passed in a batch of Public Interest Litigation (PILs) filed by transgender activists Grace Banu Ganesan and Rizwan Bharathi seeking a horizontal reservation policy for transgender and intersex persons in public employment and education.

It was argued by the petitioners that while transgender persons are included in the Most Backward Class category, there are no clear guidelines on how reservation should be provided to them.

Highlighting the importance of horizontal reservations, they contended that it goes beyond vertical reservations, allowing for reservations based on multiple significant identities, such as gender and caste or disability and caste.

The emphasized that the existing policy grants transgender individuals identifying as women the advantage of horizontal reservation within all caste categories. Conversely, those identifying as men or as a third gender are categorized based on their respective caste or placed under the Most Backward Class (MBC) category, choosing the option that offers them the most favorable circumstances.

Court took note of the submission of Senior Counsel Jayna Kothari, representing Ganesan that the Karnataka government had come up with a policy of providing 1% horizontal reservation for transgender persons across all caste categories.

The division bench, therefore, suggested that the Tamil Nadu government could also consider such a policy without compromising the existing vertical reservations.

Notably, in August last year, the high court had told the Tamil Nadu government that it was right time to initiate steps to provide reservations to transgender persons in the local body elections as a welfare measure with a view to include them in a mainstream society and for their democratic participation.

A single bench of Justice S M Subramaniam had said that in order to give the voices of this community, the reservation for transgenders must extend to forums of law making institutions.

Case Title: Grace Banu Ganesan and Another Vs State Of Tamil Nadu and Another with Connected matters