The Rajasthan High Court on 13 November, directed the city police department to appoint Ganga Kumari as a constable, giving way for the appointment of the state’s first transgender police constable.
Justice Dinesh Mehta termed it a case of “gender bias” and asked the force to provide her appointment within six weeks from the date of order along with the notional benefits from the year 2015.
Rajasthan’s Ganga Kumari could well have been India’s first transgender in a state police force, at least a year before Tamil Nadu’s K Pritha Yashini, if she was allowed to join as a constable in December 2015.
On Sunday, Yashini took that honor when she joined duty as a sub-inspector (SI) at the office of Dharmapuri superintendent of police after completing training in Chennai. She joined the service last year after Madras high court’s intervention.
In Rajasthan, Ganga’s batchmates joined duty in October last year, but she was denied the chance after doctors discovered during the medical examination that she was a hermaphrodite – commonly known as transgender – and officers of the police department got cold feet for lack of clarity.
The 24-year-old transgender from Jakhari village in Raniwada, 538 km southwest of Jaipur, passed the written and physical exam for recruitment of police constables in Rajasthan in March 2015.
Kumari moved the high court stating that despite being eligible, the Jalore police refused to appoint her as constable.
Her counsel Rituraj Singh said that it was for the first time that a transgender individual had participated in police recruitment exams and stood successful.
“But given the rules for the appointment, the department was in confusion, and in spite of passing the examination, Kumari was not appointed as constable,” he said.
Given the disclosure in the medical examination, the Jalore police had sent the case to Jodhpur range IGP, who further sent it to the police headquarters in July 2015.
“The police officers then transferred the file to the home department, where it has been lying stuck since,” said Rituraj Singh, Kumari’s Lawyer.
