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A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking the inclusion of transgender inclusive sex education in school curricula across the country.
The PIL has been filed by Kavya Mukherjee Saha, a Class 12th student from Vasant Valley School in Delhi. As per her plea, the petitioner is concerned about the lack of transgender inclusive Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in NCERT and SCERT textbooks and seeks effective implementation of binding guidelines for gender sensitisation and transgender inclusive CSE across all education institutions across the country. After hearing submissions by the counsel appearing for the petitioner student today, a bench led by Chief Justice of India BR Gavai issued notice to NCERT, the Central government and six states seeking their response to the said plea. The plea states that binding directions in this regard have been issued by the top court in the 2014 case of National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India. However, these directions have not yet been implemented by the government, the plea contends. Further, it states that the NCERT and several SCERTs have failed to incorporate the statutory mandates under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, which require the implementation of inclusive education for transgender persons in the academic curricula. "A textbook review done by the Petitioner across States, including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, confirms a systemic omission (of implementation of transgender-inclusive education) with the partial exception of Kerala. This exclusion violates Articles 14, 15, 19(1 )(a), 21, and 21A, and disregards Directive Principles under Articles 39(e)-(f), 46,c and 51 (c), thereby perpetuating institutional erasure and reinforcing stigma", the plea says. Thus, the plea seeks directions to the authorities to include age-appropriate, transgender-inclusive Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in school curricula and textbooks. It also seeks directions requiring the authorities to create binding guidelines for the implementation of gender sensitisation in all educational institutions nationwide. (ANI)
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