HC seeks state’s response to petition seeking reservation for transgenders

Mumbai The Bombay high court (HC) has asked the state government to respond to a petition seeking reservations for the transgender community in the Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited (MAHATRANSCO), which issued an advertisement on May 4 to fill up 170 posts of assistant engineers.

The division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Amjad Sayed was hearing a petition filed by 30-year-old Vinayak Kashid, who is a transgender. The bench was informed that after MAHATRANSCO had issued the recruitment notice, Vinayak applied for the position.

However, while there is vertical reservation for Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates and horizontal reservation for weaker sections of the society, she did not find any reservation for trans-persons. Although she belongs from the OBC category, she was not allowed to apply under the OBC quota as she is a transgender and was asked to apply under the open category.

The petition states that she tried to contact the concerned authorities of the MAHATRANSCO as the Supreme Court had already directed reservations for trans-persons. However, she moved the high court as she did not get any response from the electricity company.

She has sought directions to the authorities concerned to make reservations for trans-persons in the posts advertised by MAHATRANSCO and a stay on the recruitment process till the petition was decided.

After hearing the initial submissions, the bench issued notice to the company and the state government and directed them to respond to the petition. HC has now posted the petition for further hearing in July.