REGENT COMPUTRONICS PVT. LTD.

Jane Kaushik Appellant

V/S

UNION OF INDIA Respondents

Referred Judgements :-

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It has been more than half a decade since the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights Act), 2019 (the "2019 Act"), came to be enacted and it has been more than a decade since this Court rendered the judgment in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India ( "NALSA"), reported in (2014) 5 SCC 438. However, the question whether the transgender persons are living a life with dignity continues to beg for an answer. One may get to read a lot about their rights in the statute books, but the reality is that these rights remain only an empty formality.

(2.) There is no gainsaying that the Union of India and the States need to do a lot more to create mechanisms for the transgender persons to translate their rights into reality. The lethargy exhibited on part of the concerned Government has also led the non-state establishments to put the compliance of the 2019 Act and of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, 2020 (the "2020 Rules") in a cold freeze. This abeyance of rights is a matter of serious concern. The community continues to face discrimination and marginalization, with a scarcity of healthcare, economic opportunities and non-inclusive educational policies adding to their struggles. In 2014, this Court in NALSA (supra) recognized transgender people as the "Third Gender", upholding their fundamental rights to equality and dignity. In furtherance of NALSA (supra), the 2019 Act was enacted with a view to provide a legal framework for the recognition and protection of the rights of transgender people in India.

(3.) Transgender persons have found mention in the ancient history of the country with references to a "Third Sex" (Tritiya Prakriti) in Vedic and Puranik literature and characters like 'Mohini' in Hindu mythology as well as periods of imperial recognition. However, with the onset of colonialera, the history of the transgender community in India became rather sour: it comprised of centuries of criminalization, followed by institutionalized marginalization. Despite this, we must also acknowledge that the history is a witness to the community's simultaneous struggles for rights and acceptance. The 2019 Act is a much recent result of these modern struggles. However, what stands exposed in the present litigation is the indifferent behavior that the State machineries have exhibited towards this community. This is despite a host of positive obligations provided under the 2019 Act, more particularly, a duty on the State to integrate this community into the mainstream and implement their constitutional and statutory rights in a manner that assures them dignity.

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JANE KAUSHIK Vs. UNION OF INDIA

Referred Judgements :-

JUDGEMENT

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