The Karnataka government proposes to reserve for transgender persons 1% of the vacancies in any service or post in all categories of employment to be filled up through direct recruitment process. This proposal applies to government jobs.
The reservation of 1% would be available in each category of general merit, schedule caste, scheduled tribe, and in each of the categories of among the Other Backward Classes, stated a draft notification issued on May 13, 2021 to amend Rule 9 of the Karnataka Civil Services (General Recruitment) Rules, 1977 to enable reservation for transgenders.
The government submitted a copy of the draft notification to a division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj of the High Court of Karnataka on Friday during the hearing of a PIL petition filed by Sangama, a society working for the welfare of the transgender community, and Nisha Gulur.
In its statement to the court, the government said that no objection has been received for the draft notification proposing 1% reservation for transgenders though 15 days were given to the public to submit objections or suggestions to the proposed amendment.
However, the government clarified to the court that final notification for reserving 1% of vacant posts by inserting Rule (1D) under Rule 9 would not be issued till finalisation of the objections received for amending Rule 16, which was also proposed in the same draft notification. Rule 16 proposes to bar transfer, deputation or posting of any government officer belonging to any other service or post to the posts of Tahsildar Grade-1 and Tahsildar Grade-II.
The petition included a complaint that the Karnataka government had failed to reserve posts for transgenders during last year’s recruitment to fill up 2,672 posts of special reserve police constables, and other posts despite the apex court’s 2014 verdict in the case of National Legal Services Authority vs. Union of India directing governments to reserve posts for transgenders while treating them as ‘third gender’.
The draft notification also states that all appointing authorities must provide separate column of ‘others’ with male and female gender in the application for recruitment to any category of Group A, B, C or D posts to enable trans-genders to avail reservation.
However, if sufficient number of eligible transgender persons are not available to the extent of 1%, the vacancies should be filled by male or female candidates belonging to the same category, the draft rules state.
The court had last year asked the government to enforce the apex court’s directions, and the government had said that proposal to provide reservation for transgenders was under consideration by amending relevant provisions of the law.
