HC allows hermaphrodite to sit for paramilitary forces exam

The Delhi HC has allowed a hermaphrodite to take the recruitment exam of the Sashastra Seema Bal. Earlier, the force had denied her employment, as she did not have ovaries.

The Delhi HC has allowed a hermaphrodite to take the recruitment exam of the Sashastra Seema Bal. Earlier, the force had denied her employment, as she did not have ovaries.

HT Image

Overturning the home ministry observations, justice Geeta Mittal said, “The rejection of the petitioner… on grounds of medical un-fitness in the medical examinations and findings of Dr K Bhushan, Additional Director General, ministry of home affairs is arbitrary, irrational and illegal and hereby quashed”.

Geeta Luthra, counsel for Sunita (name changed), had filed a petition stating the force’s medical panel found her unfit for the job last year because she was a pseudo-hermaphrodite, a person who has ‘XX’, or female chromosomes
but has masculine reproductive organs.

“The paramilitary forces’ medical panel declared her ‘unfit’ because she had her ovaries removed. The force turned down her appeal for a review, which a doctor from Sanjay Gandhi Medical Government Hospital in Lucknow strongly recommended,” Luthra told the court.

The court directed the force to evaluate the physical standards of the petitioner and conduct a physical efficiency test of the petitioner within a period of 3 months, after giving the petitioner at least 2 months notice of the date and time of the examination and test.

The judge said, “If the petitioner clears the same, she would be held entitled to forthwith recruitment”.