CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has given the state government six weeks time to arrive at a decision on 1% reservation for transgender persons in education and employment.
Accepting the state government’s plea for time to respond with an update on the policy decision for implementing transgender reservation, the first bench of Madras High Court consisting of Chief Justice KR Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy posted the matter for the next hearing on January 10. The state government had submitted that five departments have given their nod for the implementation of the reservation for transgenders and that a policy decision would be taken after hearing the views from the remaining departments.
The issue was raised during the hearing of a petition filed by A Nivetha seeking direction to consider her application for admission to the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) for the 2024-25 academic year. She stated in her plea that the prospectus issued for the admission notification does not contain a specific column for marking the third gender and wanted the court to quash it as illegal, as it is against the Supreme Court directions. Following this, the court asked her to submit the application for admission to the TANUVAS registrar on November 25 and asked the university not to reject her application on the grounds of gender.
The draft Tamil Nadu LGBTQIA+ policy prepared by the social welfare department had recommended horizontal reservation for transgender persons in all direct recruitment. It has also proposed a reservation of 1% in admissions of all courses in government, government-aided and private educational institutions.