The Delhi High Court Wednesday directed the Delhi government to decide a representation seeking legal recognition of the transgender community (TG) as the third gender on bus tickets in its DTC buses and travel for free, within four months.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad was hearing a PIL plea filed by a transgender person that states that the community faces hardship every time they purchase a physical ticket in a bus as their gender is not recognised by the DTC.
The plea alleges that the petitioner while purchasing physical tickets from bus conductor faces trauma and agony as the community is not recognised as the third gender.
The plea states that transgender persons not only have to choose a gender they might not identify with but they are also left at the mercy of the bus conductor. The petitioner claims that many a time when persons from the community choose their sex as female, the bus conductor refuses to issue them tickets as they are perceived as male. They are accused of commuting for free as the DTC provides physical bus tickets to females free of cost, causing them trauma and pain.
The plea places reliance on a 2014 Supreme Court decision in National Legal Services Authority v Union of India which upheld the right of the TG community to decide their self-identified gender and directed the Centre and state governments to grant legal recognition to their gender identity.
The SC in its reasoning had observed that Article 19 (l)(a) of the Indian Constitution grants a person the right to choose their gender identity holding, “…We, therefore, hold that values of privacy, self-identity autonomy and personal integrity are fundamental rights guaranteed to the members of the transgender community under Article 19(l)(a) of the Constitution of India and the State is bound to protect and recognise those rights.”
Dr Amit George appearing for the petitioner submitted that a representation was made by the petitioner in August with the Delhi government but it went unanswered. He also argued that there was a similar petition filed in HC where in March 2020, a division bench of the HC passed directions to the Delhi government to decide the issue, but no decision has been taken till date.
The counsel for the Delhi government Santosh Kumar Tripathi said the government will certainly take a decision in the matter.
The HC directed the Delhi government to decide the issue within four months and granted liberty to the petitioner to approach the court again if required.
