Our Correspondent
IMPHAL, April 10
Solidarity and Action against HIV infection in India (SAATHI), an NGO along with All Manipur Nupi Manbi Association,a community based organistion(CBO) is jointly organising an interaction program with media persons on April 15 at Manipur Press Club, Imphal pertaining to the path-breaking National Legal Service Authority (NALSA) judgement by Supreme Court of India(SCI) which had recognised various rights entitled to transgender community.The said interaction programme will be held with an objective to spell out and discuss about the scope and specific recommendations of judgement made by the SCI and the step taken by central, respective states governments and also to map out a strategy to forward the steps, according to the organisers.
Mention may be made here that the SCI on April 15, 2014 had affirmed the constitutional rights and freedoms of transgender persons including those who are identified as third gender and those who identified as opposite gender to their biological sex.
By recognising diverse gender identities, the Court has broken the binary gender construct of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ that has pervaded Indian law.
Filed in September, 2012 by NALSA, the writ petition had sought several directives from the SCI, including granting of equal rights and protection to transgender persons; inclusion of a third category in recording one’s sex/gender in identity documents like the election card, passport, driving license and ration card; and for admission in educational institutions, hospitals, amongst others.
The Lawyers Collective had filed an intervention, on behalf of Ms Laxmi Narayan Tripathy, a Hijra/transgender activist, seeking recognition of self-identified gender of persons, either as male/female/third gender, based on their choice.
Following the judgement, the central and state government were directed by the Apex Court to implement the recommendation made by the court within a time frame of 6-month i.e. October 15 2014. However many state, including Manipur, has yet to implement the recommendation fully.
