Putting trans people under OBC quota gives no real benefit, says Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court on Monday (March 30, 2026) ruled that the State government’s classification of transgender people within the OBC category for reservations was a “mere facade and an eyewash” that “confers no real reservation whatsoever”, noting that trans people belonging to SC, ST, or other socio-economic categories get no benefit from this.

The court also criticised the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 (passed in Parliament, awaiting Presidential assent), which takes away the right to gender self-identification. It said this amendment risked reducing what the Supreme Court had recognised as an “inviolable aspect of personhood” to a “contingent, State-mediated entitlement”.

In the March 30 judgment, a Division Bench of Justices Arun Monga and Yogendra Kumar Purohit noted that horizontal reservations for transgender people (i.e. quota for trans people within each socio-economic category) might also come with issues, and directed the State to form a committee to look into the “compounded, aggravated marginalisation” of trans people from all socio-economic categories.

Also Read | After two years of including transgenders in OBC quota, Rajasthan jobs data shows none selected

In the meantime, the court directed that all transgender individuals be given a 3% additional weightage in the maximum marks for selection and appointment to State educational institutions or State government posts.

At the end of the judgment, in the epilogue authored by Justice Monga, the court noted the complexity of the situation right now, given that Parliament had passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, which departs from the “constitutional baseline” set in the Supreme Court’s NALSA judgement. The Bench noted that it had authored the present judgment while keeping in mind the “foundational premise” laid down in the NALSA judgment: that “selfhood is not a matter of concession, it is a matter of right”.

In this particular situation, the court added that it remains “incumbent” on the Rajasthan government to ensure that whatever policy they devise in light of its judgment, this should “preserve, to the fullest extent possible, the principle of self-identification, within the contours of the amended law, of course”. But given that the amendment Bill has completely done away with the principle of self-identification, it is unclear what this direction of the court would entail.

EDITORIAL | A shade of dark: On the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026

The court, however, added, “The State must be mindful that statutory developments cannot be implemented in a manner that dilutes constitutional guarantees.”

The court was hearing a petition filed by Ganga Kumari, a trans woman working in the Rajasthan Police, challenging the classification of transgender people under the OBC category for the purpose of reservation and seeking directions for horizontal reservations for transgender people in public education and employment.

The petitioner, through her advocate Vivek Mathur, argued that this classification was based on a misreading of the Supreme Court’s 2014 NALSA judgment, which called for transgender people to be treated as a socially and educationally backward class of citizens. The petitioner argued that classifying transgender people as OBCs was discriminatory against transgender people who may belong to SC, ST, EWS or General categories.

In its judgment, the Rajasthan High Court noted that there can be no doubt that transgender people are a vulnerable and marginalised section of society, “warranting affirmative measures”. It added, “The situation is even more acute for those born into SC/ST/SEBC families, who suffer compounded and intersecting disadvantages.”

The court concluded that by adding transgender people as an entry within the OBC list of the State, transgender people belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or other socio-economic categories get no real benefits. The court said such a classification “effectively subsumes and extinguishes their pre-existing reservation entitlements, without even affording them an option to choose”. The classification, the court noted, “merely compels a choice between two regimes without enhancing their substantive entitlements”, adding that this created a “clear dichotomy and results in an anomalous situation”.

Also Read | Horizontal quota for trans people: Rajasthan tells HC that reservation is a subject for executive, legislature

‘Empty ritual’

The court also noted the data submitted by the State government during the hearings showed that the classification as OBCs “has not benefited any transgender individual till date”. Though the court said that this classification “reduces a binding constitutional directive to an empty ritual” and amounted to the State government “conspicuously abdicating” its constitutional obligation, the judgment did not pass any directions either upholding or quashing the circular through which it was made.

On horizontal reservation, the court noted that this too would result in certain issues and might not be meaningful for the community. It said that under the current reservations regime, the “extremely low proportion” of transgender people would lead to roster points arriving at only “long and irregular intervals”, which might lead to a “systemic frustration as the eligible candidates would be compelled to wait for inordinate periods before a single opportunity arises”.

Further, the court noted that the prayer for horizontal reservation fell squarely in the domain of “policy formulation concerning reservation structuring”. As a result, the court had directed the formation of a committee, headed by the Principal Secretary of the Social Welfare Department, with representation of social activists and the transgender community, “to assess the extent of compounded marginalisation suffered by transgender persons belonging to SC/ST/SEBC/OBC/Open categories vis-a-vis others”.

The court further ordered that this committee is to conduct an inquiry and submit recommendations to the government on “measures to address the aggravated marginalisation of transgender persons from all backgrounds, be it any category”, based on which it directed the State to formulate an appropriate policy.

The court also observed that lawmakers in Rajasthan could take note of the horizontal reservation policy devised by Karnataka in 2021 and relevant advancements made in Tamil Nadu with regard to this issue, so that it could frame its own law or policy.

Published – March 30, 2026 08:07 pm IST