Telangana High Court: A Division Bench of Raghvendra Singh Chauhan, CJ and A. Abhishek Reddy, J., while addressing a petition directed the State Government to provide free ration to the transgender population without asking for ration / white acrd, etc.
Petition was filed to sought direction to respondents with regard to providing free of cost ration, food and nutrition and provisions including vegetables and fruit to members of the transgender community from ration shops and also from other outlets without insisting for the production of Ration card.
Adding to the above, respondents also be directed to provide Free of cost medicines to transgender persons including HIV medications, hormone therapy medicines, diabetes and other medications to be made available to transgender persons from primary health centres and from government and public hospitals.
- To allow transgender persons to apply for and provide the payment of three months social security pension to transgender persons under the Aasara scheme.
- Direct the respondents to provide free LPG cylinders and waive electricity bill for 6 months to transgender persons in the lines of the similar assurance for 3 months under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana.
- Direct the respondents herein to extend the Aarogyashri government medical insurance to transgender persons and Direct that the Aarogyashri include the health challenges of COVID-19,
- Direct the respondents to take appropriate action against those who are targeting the Transgender Persons by falsely labelling them in public as the potential carriers of HIV positive and CoronaVirus and consequently direct the Respondents herein to protect the Iife by providing appropriate security to the Transgender persons in all public places.
- Direct the respondents to place moratorium on the collection of rents till the end of June, free of interest and late payment penalty fees and;
- pass orders directing landlords that they should not evict transgender persons from existing rental premises for non-payment of rent during the present period
Sri R Sameer Ahmed Advocate for the Petitioner and of Sri B.S. Prasad, Advocate General, for the respondents presented the arguments.
Decision of the Bench
Bench at first stated that the present petition has highlighted the plight of transgender population during the COVID-19 Lockdown.
Court directed Advocate General B.S. Prasad, to accept notice on behalf of the respondents and has been directed to report on the following points:
- number of transgenders living in the major cities of the State
- concrete steps being taken by the State Government for ensuring that the members of the transgender community have ready availability of food grains, consumable items, and medicines as per their need and requirement
- number of NGOs with which the Government is coordinating in order to ensure that all the essential commodities do reach the transgender community through these NGOs
State Government is directed to ensure that these commodities are given to transgender community members, free of cost without insisting on producing ration card/white card, etc.
Matter to be listed on 11-05-2020.[Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli v. State of Telangana, 2020 SCC OnLine TS 440 , decided on 27-04-2020]