OBC Listing Without Real Benefit Falls Short of NALSA: Rajasthan High Court Orders 3% Weightage for Transgender Persons

Ganga Kumari, a transgender person, had earlier sought 1% horizontal reservation in police recruitment; on 14.02.2022 a Division Bench directed the State to complete the exercise within four months (paras 9.4-9.5). During contempt proceedings, the State issued a notification dated 12.01.2023 adding the transgender (third gender) community to the OBC list at serial No. 92, and the contempt petition was closed (paras 9.6-9.9). In this petition she sought quashing of that notification and horizontal reservation as directed in NALSA v. Union of India (paras 8.1-8.2). The State argued that reservation structure is a policy matter, that OBC inclusion complied with NALSA, and that a similar issue was pending before the Supreme Court (paras 10-11, 13).

The Bench first rejected the State's preliminary objections: the contempt order never examined whether the notification complied with NALSA, and the pending Supreme Court petition concerns NEET-PG admissions, not this notification (paras 15-18). On merits, it read NALSA as containing two directions, to treat transgender persons as socially and educationally backward and to extend all kinds of reservation, and focused on the second (paras 23-24). The State itself admitted that the notification had benefited no transgender person (para 20). Transgender persons born into SC, ST or SEBC families could even lose more beneficial birth-based entitlements under Entry 92, with no option to choose; and even with an option, the notification adds nothing (paras 28-30). The Court found it an exercise in form without substance and held that the State had abdicated its obligation (paras 31-32). Yet it accepted that creating a horizontal quota is a policy matter beyond Article 226 (para 33). With transgender persons at about 0.024% of the population (2011 Census), a separate horizontal quota would yield roster points only at long intervals (paras 25-26).