Inclusive appointments: Transgender persons seek govt job quota

PHC issues notice to chief secretary, education secretary

PESHAWAR: Members of the transgender community in the province on Friday asked a high court to direct the government to allocate a quota for them in government jobs in line with past orders of the higher and superior courts.

A petition in this regard was filed in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) by Rahim Dada Khan a person who is a transgender.

He argued that he had completed a Masters of Arts degree in international relations apart from a Bachelors of Education (Bed) and now wishes to secure a job in the education department as a teacher in basic pay scale (BPS) grade-16.

Submitting his petition through Advocate Javed Iqbal Gulbela, Rahim told the court that when the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government recently appointed around 40,000 school teachers while another drive to recruit hundreds of additional school teachers was underway, there was no transgender was allocated.

He told the court that the PHC in its May 2017 judgment had directed the provincial government to reserve a quota in government jobs — as per established government policy — for people who are transgender.

He added that the Supreme Court too had issued similar directives, but K-P government has yet to comply with those orders.



The petitioner’s lawyer argued that Supreme Court has issued directives that the members of the community will be given respect as well their fundamental rights and properties will be protected but in spite of the clear orders, it has not been implemented and no quota for transgender has been given in the newly advertised jobs in K-P education department.

Rahim listed the K-P government through the chief secretary, Elementary and Secondary Education Department secretary, establishment and provincial finance secretaries, as respondents in the case.

A two-member bench of the PHC comprising Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Muhammad Ayub admitted the petition for hearing and issued notices to the respondents to explain what efforts have been made to implement the court orders of providing a quota for people who are transgender in government jobs.

Justice Ikramullah further observed that the quota allocated for the community must not be usurped.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2018.