Karnataka High Court strikes down State circular barring transgender candidates from RPC recruitment

A division bench of the Karnataka High Court has quashed a 2025 State circular that excluded transgender candidates from applying to constabulary posts under the Reserve Police Constabulary recruitment, holding that the circular was inconsistent with NALSA and with the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.

A division bench of the Karnataka High Court has quashed Circular No. HD/187/RPC/2025 issued by the State Home Department in October 2025, which had restricted applications for the post of Reserve Police Constabulary (RPC) to candidates in the male and female categories alone. The circular had been challenged by three transgender candidates whose online applications were rejected at the verification stage on the ground that the form did not contain a corresponding category for them.

The bench held that the circular was inconsistent with the Supreme Court's directions in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (2014) and with Section 3 of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, which prohibits discrimination by any establishment, public or private, in matters of employment.

The circular and its effect on recruitment

The Home Department had issued the impugned circular as part of a recruitment cycle for 7,500 RPC posts in October 2025. The circular's third paragraph directed that the online application portal accept only two gender categories — “Male” and “Female” — and instructed recruitment officers to reject applications that were submitted under any other category at the document-verification stage. The State's affidavit before the Court explained the circular as a measure to align the application portal with the existing reservation roster, which contained categories only for male and female candidates.

The petitioners — three transgender women living in Bengaluru — had applied to the recruitment in November 2025. Each had, with the assistance of the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority, obtained a transgender identity certificate under Section 6 of the 2019 Act before applying. Each had been rejected at the verification stage with the reason “category not available.” A subsequent representation to the Director-General of Police was returned with a one-line endorsement that the application could not be processed in light of the impugned circular.

The reasoning

Justice Suraj Govindaraj, leading the division bench, framed the question narrowly. The State, the bench observed, was not being asked to create a horizontal reservation for transgender candidates; that was a separate question that the petitioners had not pressed. The State was being asked only to make available, in its recruitment portal, a category that allowed transgender candidates to apply at all. The bench characterised the circular as “a procedural exclusion with substantive consequences.”

The Court returned to NALSA for the controlling principle. Paragraphs 65 to 68 of the 2014 judgment had directed the Centre and the States to recognise the transgender community as a third category in matters of public service and to ensure that they were not deprived of employment opportunities on the ground of gender identity. The 2019 Act, the bench observed, gave statutory force to that direction; Section 3 prohibits discrimination, and Section 9 specifically addresses establishments. A circular that conditioned application on the candidate fitting into one of two binary categories, the bench held, could not survive Sections 3 and 9.

The State's defence — that the application portal could not technically accommodate a third category in the existing recruitment cycle — was rejected. The bench observed that administrative inconvenience does not validate a discriminatory rule. If the portal cannot accommodate the legally mandated category, the bench held, the portal must be modified. The recruitment cycle, if necessary, must wait.

The relief and the timeline

The bench has issued a series of directions. The Home Department circular has been quashed in its entirety. The State has been directed to issue a fresh notification, including a transgender category, within eight weeks. The applications of the three petitioners are to be accepted and processed afresh; the recruitment cycle for the remaining 7,497 posts will continue, but no final selection list may be issued until the revised notification has run for the standard application period of thirty days. The State has been directed to file a compliance affidavit on or before 15 July 2026.

The bench also noted, in a brief paragraph at the end, that the question of horizontal reservation for transgender candidates in State recruitment was not before it and remains open. Several State Governments — Karnataka included — have already begun to formulate policy on the question; the bench observed that those policies will have to be tested when they are crystallised.

Outcome

The writ petition is allowed. Circular No. HD/187/RPC/2025 stands quashed. The State will issue a revised recruitment notification within eight weeks. The three petitioners' applications will be processed afresh. A compliance affidavit is due before 15 July 2026.