Finally: K'taka govt notifies 1% reservation for transgender persons in jobs

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Tuesday, July 6 finally issued a notification extending internal reservation for transgenders in all direct recruitment for government jobs — 1 per cent of all vacancies under each category of General Merit, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and in each of the categories among Other Backward Classes will be reserved for transgenders henceforth.

Rule 9 of the Karnataka Civil Services (General Recruitment) Rules, 1977, has been amended to enable reservation for transgender persons.

Karnataka will follow the definition of ‘transgender person’, as described in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, of the Union Government. As per the Act, a ‘transgender person’ is one whose gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at birth, and includes transman or transwoman (whether or not such person has undergone sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, laser therapy or such other therapy), a person with intersex variations, gender queer and having such socio-cultural identities as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta.

The amendment adds that if a sufficient number of eligible transgender persons are not available to fill up 1% of seats, the vacancies should be filled by male or female candidates of the same category.

The draft of this notification had been submitted to the High Court of Karnataka recently during the hearing of a PIL petition filed by Sangama, a society working for the welfare of the transgender community, and Nisha Gulur.

The court had last year asked the government to enforce the apex court’s directions on reservation.