Following a petition by a transgender person who had cleared the Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014 and 2022, but had not received an interview or counselling call, the Calcutta High Court (HC) passed a historical order. It has directed the West Bengal government to ensure that there is one per cent reservation for transgenders in all public jobs. The Court highlighted the fact that while West Bengal had a policy in place for equal treatment in employment for transgenders, there was no reservation for them till date.
Justice Rajasekhar Mantha has issued a directive to the chief secretary of the Government of West Bengal to make sure the reservation is implemented.
Justice Mantha drew attention to the fact that in 2014, the Supreme Court had declared in a case that ‘hijras’ and eunuchs, in addition to binary genders, should be treated as the ‘third gender’ so that their rights were protected under Part III of the Constitution. At the time, the apex court had supported the right of transgender individuals to decide their self-identified gender, and had ordered the Central and state governments to legally recognise their gender identity as male, female or ‘third gender’.
At the time, the Supreme Court issued directives to the Centre and the state governments to ensure that relevant measures were taken to treat them as socially and educationally backward classes of citizens, and provide them with all the support and reservation required when it came to their admission to educational institutions and for public appointments.
The Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare, West Bengal government, had in November, 2022, issued a notification that transgender persons should not be discriminated against and should be given equal job opportunities.
Clearly, the state had already embraced a policy to treat transgender people equally when it came to jobs. However, no reservation had been made for them till now as the Supreme Court had directed.
