Insist on reservation for third gender: High Court

Chennai : The Madras High Court on Tuesday granted liberty to the members of the third gender to insist that the government or the authorities concerned provide reservation for them in employment.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu gave the liberty while disposing of a PIL petition from Grace Banu Ganeshan, who prayed for a direction to the Registrar-General of the High Court to conduct a special recruitment drive for transgenders with one per cent reservation for them in the vacancies to be filled by him, based on a recent notification by the Madras High Court.

In his counter, the Registrar-General submitted that there was no application from any person belonging to the third gender. This Public Interest Litigation has worked itself out, as there was no third gender application pursuant to the said notification issued on March 14 this year. Hence, "it is disposed of without affecting the petitioner and the rights of the members of the third gender to insist on reservation in future recruitment processes," the bench said.

The bench also noted that in tune with the rule of reservation provided under the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016, applications were invited from third gender candidates who did not possess any community certificate, and it was indicated that they would be considered as most backward class as per a GO issued by the relevant department of the State on April 6, 2015.

Other directions were also issued as to how third gender candidates, who identify themselves as females would be considered and third gender candidates who identify themselves as male and third gender, respectively, would also be considered.