The Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra Government to issue directions to all educational institutions for enabling name and gender change for transgenders in official records.
The division bench of Justice Gautam Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale said educational institutions should have a form on their websites for such changes.
A plea by an alumni of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) who sought changes in records with the institute and re-issuance of documents and degree certificate with the new name and gender was thus disposed of by the court.
The Court said that this was a case of a denial of a human being’s self-identity and self-identification which cannot be done and permitted.
The bench said an institute cannot be permitted to force upon the petitioner a name, identity or a gender that the petitioner has chosen to reject in preference to some other.
The bench also took a strong exception to TISS’s condition that the petitioner first change their name in all previous records. It ordered the institute to make the required changes immediately and issue documents to the petitioner.
The court said this should be done soon to enable the petitioner for applying for LLB course with the new name and identity. The court said it believes refusing relief would be a gross injustice and complete denial of the fundamental rights including the right to privacy and the right to dignity.
The Court noted that the approach was wrong as it fails to recognize that questions of identity, self-identification and gender perception do not happen at a biologically definable point in time. These are matters of self-realisation without predictable time frames.
It added that every transgender person who desires a name change need not be put through the additional trauma of having to get every single document from birth onwards reissued.
In the plea filed through Advocate Rebecca Gonsalves, the petitioner said they had graduated from TISS with an MA in Development Studies in 2013.
The petitioner, who was born as a girl, adopted another name and self in 2015 for which a petition for name change in the gazette was also filed in 2019.
The petitioner desired to study law and therefore approached TISS on January 6, 2023 for re-issuance of documents with the changed name and gender. After the institute sought a host of documents, the petitioner approached the Bombay High Court.
Relying on the famous NALSA judgement, the High Court observed that it directed towards greater inclusiveness and acceptance of individuality and individual traits.
The court observed that these are not to be compromised because of some bureaucratic requirements. It is for the 1st Respondent (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) to make this change on the 1st Respondent’s website (provide a form for name and gender change) and for the 2nd Respondent State Government to issue necessary instructions to similar educational institutions across Maharashtra.