Insisting On Transgender Person To Produce ‘Gender Re-Assignment Certificate’ For Passport Prima Facie Violates Article 21: Delhi High Court

[11 April 2022] The Delhi High Court observed that the Passport Rues, insofar as they require a Transgender person to produce certificate of Gender Re-assignment Surgery, is prima facie in teeth of the Supreme Court’s judgment in NALSA v. Union of India and is violative of Article 21 of the
Constitution.
A Bench led by Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi observed, “You can’t insist on somebody to undergo sex-change operation for that (passport) purpose. You can classify such persons as Transgender and then there can be a subclassification into Trans man, Trans female, whatever the orientation of the person is, whatever the person wants to declare himself or herself as…but where is the question of insistence on surgery? One person does not want to undergo surgery but identifies himself or herself as a male or female.”
Justice Navin Chawla, also comprising the Bench, added, “As per NALSA judgment, they have the right to decide their self-identified gender. That right was upheld. It means that a Transgender person will himself or herself decide the gender and you will abide by that. This insistence is violative of
Article 21 right.”
The Court has directed the concerned authority of the Central government to take specific instructions in this regard within a week and has posted the matter for hearing on April 22.