PIL: Protect transgenders from sexual offences

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 26

Highlighting gaps in penal laws dealing with sexual offences, a lawyer has moved the Supreme Court demanding equal protection of law for members of

the transgender community against sexual offences.

Petitioner Reepak Kansal alleged that there was no penal provision that protected those belonging to the third gender from offences of sexual assault. He urged the top court to direct the Centre to “make appropriate modification or interpretation of sections or provisions of the IPC dealing with sexual assault to include transgender, transsexuals, kinnar and eunuchs in the definitions accordingly”.

Kansal also wanted an anti-discrimination law that penalised discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender and implementation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights by India as it was a signatory to it.

“In spite of declaring transgender people to be a ‘third gender’ by this court, there is no provision or section in the IPC which may protect the third gender from the sexual assault by male or female or another transgender,” Kansal submitted in his PIL, referring to a 2014 verdict of the top court on rights of transgenders.

The top court had granted “recognition to the transgenders as ‘persons’ falling under the ambit of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution”, still they do not have equal protection of law in relation to sexual offenses.