In what may come as a huge relief for transgenders, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court recently directed the Commissioner of Aurangabad to safeguard and protect a girl until she reaches her transgender partner.
A division bench Sunil Deshmukh and Nitin Suryawanshi was hearing a criminal petition filed through advocate Sutej Jadhav on behalf of a 29-year-old transgender who has chosen male as his gender. He is from Rajasthan, works in the hospitality sector in Goa and is currently staying in a shelter home for transgenders in Mumbai.
He met the girl on social media in June 2019 and they eventually confessed their love for each other. However, when lockdown was announced she moved back to Osmanabad with her family. When she did not score enough marks for postgraduate studies, her parents refused to fund her further education. Her brother helped her get into an institute in Allahabad for a correspondence course.
However, her parents started forcing her to get married. She then contacted the man she loved and asked for his help to leave the house. In February 2021, they met and took a train to Allahabad where she was pursuing her studies.
She called her mother and told her she did not wish to return to Osmanabad, but her parents filed a missing report with local police and reached Allahabad the next day. She was then forcibly taken back home, and her boyfriend was not allowed to meet her.
According to the girl her parents subjected her to mental torture and made her undergo humiliating medical tests to “cure her sexual orientation.” She managed to leave with her boyfriend to live with his parents in Kota, Rajasthan, but the police traced her there.
In June 2021, a lawyer in Kota filed an application before a chief judicial magistrate to set the girl at liberty as per her wishes. However, she was directed to go to her parents' home by the court. She moved out again and filed a revision application before the district and sessions court in Kota. However, her parents forcibly took her back and have kept her in their custody against her wishes.
The High Court judges met the girl who said she did not want to go with her parents and will go with her boyfriend who has also shown a willingness to take her with him.
The court then recorded, “The girl is major and appears to be resolute and is at liberty to act as per her wish. However, considering the apprehension expressed by the girl, the Commissioner of Police, Aurangabad is directed to safeguard and protect the girl up to the destination she wishes to go.”
