SANGEETA HIJRA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned counsel for the petitioner, State, State Election Commission and the respondent no. 5.

(2.) The petitioner has moved the Court seeking the following reliefs:

(3.) The only issue was as to whether the order dtd. 13/5/2017, rejecting the nomination paper of the petitioner by the respondent no. 4 was justified or not. The ground for rejection was two-folds. Firstly, that being a transgender, the petitioner could have fought only from an Unreserved General Category i.e., Category-C whereas the contention of the petitioner was that because of being a transgender, in terms of the order of the Supreme Court in the case of National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India reported as (2014) 5 SCC 438, the relevant being at paragraph no. 135.2., she having voluntarily decided to be treated as a female, she was entitled to all benefits given under law to a female candidate. Secondly, the issue with regard to her having put cross mark at various columns in the nomination paper, the stand was that those columns were in continuation to the initial query and only if the answer to the first query was 'Yes', then those details were required and once the answer was 'No', the said category was not to be filled up. It was the discretion of the petitioner to 'cross mark' or put a 'dash' or a 'zero' and thus, having put a cross mark cannot go against her and there is no suppression.