PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Wednesday again sought response of federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Election Commission of Pakistan to a transgender person’s plea for allocation of special seats in National and provincial assemblies for her community.

A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Syed Arshad Ali again issued notices to governments and ECP after preliminary hearing into the petition of Sobia Khan, a resident of Peshawar.

The petitioner, whose name on her CNIC is Mohammad Bilal, insisted when the high court would order fixing of ‘quota’ in assemblies for transgender persons, her nomination papers recently filed for election to a general seat in Peshawar’s PK-81 constituency should be considered for those reserved seats.

She has made the chief election commissioner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial election commissioner, returning officer for PK-81 constituency, federal government through attorney general for Pakistan and KP government through its advocate general as respondents to the petition.

Petitioner Sobia Khan has submitted nomination papers for PK-81 as independent candidate

The petitioner also sought an interim relief in the form of orders for the respondents, including the chief election commissioner, to accept her nomination papers for assembly seats to be reserved for transgender persons and not general seats.

Lawyers Sahibzada Riazatul Haq, Mehwish Muhib Kakakhel and Batool Rafaqat appeared for the petitioner and said that during previous hearing on January 4, the court had sought replies of the respondents but so far they had not submitted the same.

They said that their client was born as a transgender person but as there was no separate category for the community in computerised national identity cards, her father got his CNIC made as a man.

They said that the petitioner was a well-educated person with a graduate degree and worked as a social activist, especially campaigning for the welfare of transgender community.

The lawyers said that the petitioner also worked for an online news agency as a journalist and hosted programmes at three FM radio channels and was the first transgender member of a dispute resolution council in the province.

They said that she had submitted nomination papers to contest general elections in PK-81 constituency as an independent candidate eyeing a ‘reserved’ seat.

They said when she approached the relevant returning officer for receiving nomination papers, the latter told her that her nomination papers won’t be accepted for that seat as no ‘quota’ for transgender persons had so far been fixed by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The lawyers contended when a transgender person had the right to participate in elections as a voter, why the assemblies didn’t have seats reserved for the community.

They wondered as National and provincial assemblies had seats reserved for religious minorities and women, why the legislature didn’t have such representation for the transgender community.

They argued that for safeguarding the rights of transgender persons in the country, it was necessary that transgender persons should have representation in all assemblies and therefore, the court should order the government and ECP to create special seats for them in legislative bodies.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2024