3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Mar 26, 2026 03:35 PM IST
The Supreme Court-appointed advisory committee on transgender rights wrote to Union Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar on Wednesday, requesting the withdrawal of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026. On the same day, the Lok Sabha passed the contentious legislation.
The chairperson of the committee, former Delhi High Court judge Justice Asha Menon, confirmed to The Indian Express that the panel sent such a letter to the Minister.
The committee was constituted by the Supreme Court in October 2025 while hearing a matter involving a transgender woman who was terminated from employment as a teacher by private schools in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat because of her transgender identity.
Noting the administrative lethargy in implementing the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, the apex court formed the expert panel to identify statutory gaps, draft a comprehensive equal opportunity policy and recommend measures for the “reasonable accommodation” of transgender persons so that they could participate equally in society without facing systemic barriers.
The Lower House cleared the Bill on Tuesday despite strong objections and a subsequent walkout by Opposition MPs. Their demand for the Bill to be sent to a parliamentary standing committee for further scrutiny was refused.
The amendment Bill proposes sweeping changes to the existing 2019 Act, most notably dismantling the right to gender self-identification. This right, established by the Supreme Court in its landmark 2014 NALSA judgment, allowed individuals to legally identify their gender without medical intervention. The new Bill replaces this with a state-controlled medical certification process, requiring individuals to be assessed by a medical board headed by a chief medical officer.
The amendment bill also narrows the legal definition of a transgender person by restricting recognition to specific socio-cultural groups – such as hijras and kinners – and individuals with specific congenital biological variations – effectively excluding trans-men, trans-women and non-binary persons.
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These provisions have triggered nationwide protests across major cities. Activists and community members argue that the Bill relies on vague, unscientific standards and criminalises the lived realities of transgender persons. They have expressed apprehension that the mandatory medical scrutiny will lead to invasive surveillance and the erasure of diverse gender identities.
The committee comprises of Akkai Padmashali, Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli and Grace Banu (all three are trans women and trans-rights activists), academic Sourav Mandal (Associate Professor, Jindal Global Law School), Air Cmde (Dr.) Sanjay Sharma (Retd.), Chief Executive Officer, Association for Transgender Health in India, Gurugram, researchers Nithya Rajshekhar and Aparna Mehrotra, and Jayna Kothari, Senior Advocate as Amicus Curiae.
