LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday issued a notice to the Punjab government on a civil miscellaneous application seeking a direction to the education authorities to insert column of “transperson” in the section of gender in admission forms for all educational institutions.

Muhammad Nawaz alias Ashi Jan, a member of the transgender community, filed the application in a pending main petition, seeking implementation of various provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018.

Advocate Shahbaz Akmal appeared before the court on behalf of the petitioner and contended that the admission forms of the colleges/universities mentioned “male” and “female” options in the gender column, but did not mention “transperson”.

He said the act amounted to discrimination against an already marginalised community.

Justice Shujaat Ali Khan issued a notice to the respondents (Punjab government) on the application for Dec 21 when the main petition would be heard.

In this case, the court had already sought reports from the provincial government about allocation of job quota for the transgender community members in all departments and to mention eligibility for the members of the community in the job advertisement.

The petitioner submitted that the government authorities had been violating the provisions of the relevant laws by not recruiting members of the transgender community in police. He said the inspector general of police also admitted that no transperson had been appointed in the region.

The petitioner asked the court to order the chief secretary and social welfare department to ensure the implementation of the Act as even after three years transpersons did not get their right of employment.

He asked the court to seek an explanation from the IGP office, as to why it did not recruit even a single transperson during the last 10 years in police.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2021