Madhya Pradesh High Court: The Division Bench of Mohammad Rafiq, CJ and Vijay Kumar Shukla, J., decided in the matter of a petition which was filed n in the form of Public Interest Litigation by a Transgender, who is Social Worker and Paralegal Volunteer at Indore, for the welfare of the people of Transgender Community.
Counsel for the petitioner, Ms Shanno Shagufta Khan contended that there were approximately 1000 Transgenders living in Indore and most of them did not have any source to earn their livelihood and suffer from starvation. The court was further informed that there were two types of Transgender. While type-I transgender lived in ‘Dera’, who earn their livelihood by ‘Toli Badhai’ and were financially stable, but the type-II transgenders were those who live in their houses and earn their livelihood by doing little chores, they are not financially stable and are in dire need of assistance from the Government.
It was further contended that in Sandhya Sandeep Kumar Ghavri v. State of M.P., WP-7613-2020 (PIL) certain directions were sought to be issued to the respondents-State Government to provide 25 kg ‘Ration’ and cash assistance of Rs.5000/- per month to the transgenders in the State of Madhya Pradesh for at least six months and thereafter regularly provide them support to make their both ends meet for survival, however, petitioner contended that most of the transgenders did not have transgender card, specially those who were newly added to the list, and due to non-availability of transgender card, they were not in a position to get their ‘Aadhar’ Card and ‘Ration’ Card prepared. It was further contended that as against the promise of providing 5 kg food grains every month, currently only 4 kg food grains was being given to the transgender, out of which also 2 kg Bajra is provided, which is highly insufficient for their survival.
The Court gathered that most of the transgenders face difficulty not only because they do not have transgender identity card, but even the ‘Ration’ Cards were also not issued in their names. It was also been demonstrated that owing to non-availability of ‘Ration’ Card, the transgenders community were not in a position to get their ‘Aadhar’ Card issued.
The Court while taking in regard the situation faced by the community directed the Member Secretary, M.P. State Legal Service Authority to provide assistance to all such transgenders across the State by getting a survey conducted through Paralegal Volunteers and help them in getting their Identity Cards/Transgender Cards, ‘Ration’ Cards and ‘Aadhar’ Cards prepared. The respondents-State is directed to place on record the relevant material showing other benefits which are being provided to the transgender community in the State of Madhya Pradesh under any other scheme of the Central Government/State Government.[Noori v. State of M.P., WP-10027 of 2021, decided on 16-08-2021]
Suchita Shukla, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.