The amendment to Rule 9 of the Karnataka Civil Services (General Recruitment) Rules, 1977, also directs the recruiting authorities to provide a separate column to allow applicants to identify as ‘others’.
The Government of Karnataka has decided to reserve one per cent of posts or vacancies in government jobs, for transgenders. These posts will be filled through direct recruitment, and seats will be reserved under each of the categories of general, scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) as well as each of the categories under other backward classes (OBC).
As per the definition in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, a ‘transgender person’ is an individual whose gender is not in line with what was assigned at birth. The definition covers transman or transwoman, or any individual with intersex variations, or is genderqueer or identifies as kinnar, hijra, aravani and jogta.
In case there are not enough eligible candidates from amongst transgenders, the reserved posts will be filled by other applicants in the same category.
A draft of the notification had been submitted to the Karnataka High Court about a month ago, during a PIL by a society working for transgenders, called Sangama.
It was back in 2014, that the Supreme Court of India had passed a judgment that recognising the rights of the members of the transgender community, saying they had the right to enjoy all fundamental rights as per the Constitution of India. However, progress in terms of implementation has been rather slow.
