MUMBAI: Bombay high court (HC) on Saturday, in an interim order, directed the state to protect a person who claimed to be a 23-year-old transgender male from being forced to leave Mumbai against their will, at the instance of parents and also restrained any coercive steps being taken by police.
A trans person prefers to be identified as ‘they’.
The person had moved the HC, fearing threat from their parents and the police.
Advocate Vijay Hiremath submitted at a hearing via video-conferencing before a bench of justices S S Shinde and N J Jamadar that they had come to Mumbai from Mysuru mid-January, sought protection for life and liberty of the person identifying as transgender “currently facing grave threat to their life from family members.” He said they had informed their parents that they wanted to pursue a career of dance and choreography in Mumbai and the father had not supported such decision and instead wanted them to get married.
Hiremath said they arrived in the city against their parents’ wishes and officials of Versova police station are now “assisting the father to take them back to Mysore against their wish”.
They were taken back to the home town in a few days after arrival and counselled by the family, but they left the family home again in February and returned to Mumbai in March for “career prospects”, after a halt in Bengaluru where an NGO gave shelter, said the petition.
It adds that again the parents were making attempts to get them to return home and hence the petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution to invoke the extraordinary powers of the HC to grant justice and protect one’s life and liberty. Hiremath said now the person was almost in hiding.
The HC orally said, “You have to protect them. They are also citizens of this country and they can travel where they want. How can they be asked to go out of Mumbai... Do not treat them like criminals...”.
The state said parents had filed a missing person’s complaint in Mysuru. The HC said that since the person has committed no crime, the petitioner cannot be treated “this way”. It added in an oral exchange, “They are not offenders. We are directing [the] police not to harass them.”
The matter has now been kept for further hearing on August 8.
