Court upholds Kerala transman's application to be sub-inspector

Close on the heels of a transgender person enrolling as the first lawyer from the community in Kerala, another transgender person has got a favourable order from the Kerala High Court to consider his application for the post of armed police sub-inspector in Kerala Police.

Arjun Geetha, a transman hailing from Kochi, has been fighting a legal battle in this regard after he was declared ineligible by the Kerala Public Service Commission (KPSC) for applying to armed police sub-inspector (trainee) post.

The Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) had permitted him to apply for the post but the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) had filed an appeal against the KAT order.

Dismissing the appeal, a bench of Justice S V Bhatti and Justice Basant Balaji observed that denial of opportunity to the transgender person would be contrary to the protection given to transgender persons by the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of the Parliament. The Public Service Commission looked at the ineligibility of the transgender person through the prism of either general rules or special rules.

The court order, which was issued on March 10 and came out now, also directed the state government to take necessary steps to avoid such difficulties for transgender persons in the future.

The PSC's contention was that eligibility criteria for the sub-inspector post in armed police are restricted only to male candidates. The Commission could not deviate from the special rules and general rules governing it, PSC maintained.

Twenty-seven-year-old Geetha had received transgender certificate as ‘man’ from Idukki district magistrate. Hence, he could be precluded from applying to posts to which only women are made eligible.