The Supreme Court on Friday set up a committee under former Delhi High Court judge Justice Asha Menon to formulate, among others, an equal opportunity policy for transgender individuals and to suggest measures for inclusive medical care and protection for gender non-conforming and gender-diverse persons.
A two-judge bench presided by Justice J B Pardiwala directed this while awarding compensation to a trans woman teacher, who alleged that her services were unlawfully terminated by a school in Gujarat and one in Uttar Pradesh over her gender identity.
“We have awarded compensation for the way she was handled, and her services were terminated. We have taken serious cognisance of that,” Justice Pardiwala said, pronouncing the judgment.
The court said that it has formulated guidelines and “if any establishment does not have guidelines, we have prescribed that you will follow these guidelines till the Union comes out with policy”.
The committee will also comprise Sanjay Sharma, retired chief executive officer of Association for Transgender Health in India, Akai Padmashali, a Karnataka-based trans rights activist, Grace Banu, a Dalit rights and trans rights activist, Vyjayanthi Vasanta Mogli, a Telangana-based trans rights activist, Gaurav Mandal, Associate Professor at Jindal Global University, and Nithya Rajshekhar, Senior Associate at Centre for Law & Policy, Bengaluru.
The plea said the petitioner, Jane Kaushik, was offered a position of a trained graduate teacher, English and Social Sciences, at Children’s Academy in Uttar Pradesh “after undergoing a rigorous selection process in November 2022”.
“The Petitioner worked for a total of 8 days from 25.11.22 to 2.12.22 during which she was continuously subjected to body shaming, harassment and derogatory name-calling,” the plea said, adding that the petitioner was finally “forced” to resign over the threat that her compensation would be withheld.
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The plea said the petitioner was subsequently offered a position as an English teacher at a Gujarat school in July 2023. But once the gender was disclosed, the school authorities allegedly refused entry. The plea sought “remedy against” what it said was “the endless, humiliating, and degrading discrimination that she faces as a transgender person in employment”.
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