Jodhpur/Jaipur: Three days after passing a judgment while disposing of a petition challenging a 2023 state notification that classified transgender persons under the OBC category without creating a distinct reservation framework for them, the Rajasthan high court has come up with a revision in the epilogue that was part of the order.In a fresh order uploaded Thursday, the division bench of Justice Arun Monga and Justice Yogendra Kumar Purohit deleted three points in its epilogue, saying they had been included by mistake.The bench was hearing an application filed by Ganga Kumari, a 29-year-old transgender, seeking clarification related to the epilogue mentioned in the March 30 judgment. The HC refused to delete the epilogue entirely but agreed that some paragraphs in it should not have been there.“The court has clarified and ordered to remove some of the text, which court said came by mistake and was neither intended nor necessary,” said Vivek Mathur, counsel for petitioner Kumari.The revision in the epilogue came in the light of Parliament having passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, on March 30, the same day the order was pronounced by the HC. At the time of judgment, it was yet to become an act as the president’s assent was pending. However, the president’s assent came the same evening, just after the HC judgmentThe HC had said in its order of March 30 that “the proposed changes to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 go against what the Supreme Court had earlier recognised —that a person’s gender identity is a basic and fundamental right”. The HC had warned that making gender identity subject to certificates or official approval could turn this personal right into something controlled by govt.The HC had advised Rajasthan’s govt to make policies that respect a person’s right to identify their own gender as much as possible, and to ensure that new laws do not weaken constitutional rights. “Any policy should not just follow the law but also protect constitutional values by promoting inclusion, including steps like reservation. Policies should actually improve the lives of transgender persons and reduce the discrimination they face, not just exist on paper,” the HC had said.Terming these points as neither intended nor necessary, the HC has now said, “Be that as it may, the directions in the main judgment were passed as per the prevailing legal position on the date of judgment.” The HC clarified that such observations were not necessary for deciding the case and have now been removed.The HC reiterated that its original ruling relied on the principles laid down in NALSA vs Union of India, which recognises a person’s right to self-identify their gender as a fundamental right. Finally, the HC directed that the earlier version of the judgment be removed from its website and replaced with the corrected one.The HC had directed the state govt to grant 3% additional weightage in marks to transgender candidates in govt jobs and educational institutes and to constitute a high-level committee to study the extent of marginalisation and recommend a workable reservation framework.
