NEET PG 2025: Supreme Court agrees to hear plea on horizontal reservation for transgenders

NEW DELHI : The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre and others to respond to a plea seeking horizontal reservation for transgender persons in the NEET PG 2025 examination which is scheduled on June 15. A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan agreed to hear the plea filed by three transgender persons who are doctors and have challenged the April 16 notice and information bulletin dated April 17 regarding the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Post Graduate (NEET-PG) 2025.

The petitioners have claimed that the notification was issued in contravention of the directions given by the apex court in a 2014 judgement as it has not outlined any scheme/policy of horizontal reservations for transgender persons. Senior advocate Indira Jaising appeared for the petitioners. The plea said that in its 2014 verdict, the top court had directed the Centre and the states to take steps to treat transgender persons as socially and educationally backward classes of citizens and extend all kinds of reservations in cases of admission in educational institutions and for public appointments.

"As a result of the impugned notice, the petitioners are left with a right without remedy, whereby there are now no reservations for transgender persons in educational institutions in post-graduate courses in medical education in institutes despite the binding declaration of the law by this court," said the plea, filed through advocate Paras Nath Singh. The bench issued notices to the Centre, states, Union Territories and others, including the National Medical Commission, seeking their responses on the plea and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.

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Seeking quashing of the admission notice and the information bulletin, the plea also called for a direction to authorities to issue a fresh admission notice that provides compartmentalised horizontal reservation for transgender persons by reserving one per cent seats for them in each vertical category. The horizontal reservation is a type of reservation that is provided across all categories namely the General Category, as well as vertical reservation categories --Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and Other Backward Classes.

The plea said in the absence of horizontal reservations, the petitioners would be deprived of equal opportunity with no specific reservation being extended to them to ensure representation of transgender persons in postgraduate medical education despite such persons facing several social barriers. It said the apex court, in its 2014 verdict, had recognised the fundamental rights of transgender persons under the Constitution, including the right to self-determination of gender identity.