HC orders TN to give spl quota to transwoman in nursing course

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government and directorate of medical education to place a transwoman under a special category called transgender category for admitting her to the BSc Nursing course.

Justice R Suresh Kumar passed the orders on allowing a petition filed by S Tamil Selvi, who applied for a BSc Nursing course for this academic year.

According to the petitioner, though she did her diploma under the special reservation for transgender, the same was denied by the DME when she applied for the BSc Nursing degree.

The petitioner’s advocate Reshmy Christy submitted that already the Madras High Court ruled in the case of Prithika Yashini Vs Chairman, Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board, and Supreme Court in the matter of National Legal Services Authority Vs. Union of India and others directed the government to give special status transgenders in reservations.

“Despite these orders having been passed and subsequently so many orders have been passed, once again the petitioner has been treated by the respondents in the present admission to the course concerned as a female candidate and accordingly, she has been placed as the female non service candidates in the provisional merit list,” the petitioner’s counsel argued.

Recording the submissions, the judge held that followed by the judgment of the Supreme Court referred to supra as well as the division bench judgment, in the very case of the petitioner itself for 2018- 19 admission, the High Court ordered DME to reserve one seat in the transgender category as a special reservation.

“There shall be a direction to the respondents to treat the petitioner as the third gender/transgender and accordingly she shall be placed in a special category i.e. transgender category for the purpose of admission to the course concerned for which the present merit list has been issued by the secretary, selection committee, directorate of medical education only for female and male candidates,” the judge ordered.

The court also granted remedy to other transgenders if they have applied for the course directing the DME that a separate category of merit list shall be prepared for the transgender category.