NEW DELHI: The Karnataka high court on July 17 questioned the state government for failing to implement reservation for transgender persons in educational institutions, nearly 12 years after the Supreme Court’s landmark 2014 NALSA ruling directed such action.How did the transgender reservation dispute reach the high court?In 2023, a transgender student filed a case after being denied admission to the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore. The student asked the court to direct the university to follow the Karnataka State Policy on Transgenders, 2017, and give 0.5 per cent reservation to transgender persons in admissions, as per the report by LiveLaw.A single judge ruled in the student’s favour and asked NLSIU to give the reservation. NLSIU then challenged this order before a division bench. By the time this order came, the academic year 2023-24 had already started, so NLSIU said it could not admit the student in that batch. The court then asked if the student could instead be given a seat in any law college under the Karnataka State Law University (KSLU), since he had already lost valuable years of study.Earlier, the court had noted that KSLU had agreed to “try to accommodate” the student in one of its affiliated colleges — including BMS College of Law and Seshadripuram Law College — depending on his rank in the merit list and seat availability. Based on the student’s choice, the bench later asked KSLU to keep one seat reserved for him at each of these two colleges.Separately, earlier in the week, the high court had also asked the state government to speed up work on a full reservation policy for transgender persons in education, pointing out that nearly two years had passed since the policy proposal was first sent to different government departments.Why did the high court question the state government?A division bench of Justice Anu Sivaraman and Justice Venkatesh Naik T, while hearing the appeal, asked why the delay had gone on for so long and why the state government had been unable to follow the Supreme Court’s order.“This is the direction of the apex court… It is 12 years in the making now… We feel that it’s about time that positive directions are issued,” the court said.The court also pointed out that Karnataka had already given reservation to transgender persons in government jobs, so there was no reason for education to be left out.“Can the State say that it is still contemplating? It was the first State to implement reservation in the employment sector. Does that mean, the education sector, it can wait?”The court further explained that the state did not need to make a fresh policy decision on this, since the Supreme Court had already given clear directions in the NALSA judgment. The bench said:“There is no policy delay issue, there is a clear direction by the apex court. The apex court judgment has to prevail.”During the hearing, the state government told the court that one seat had already been reserved for the student in a law college affiliated with the Karnataka State Law University (KSLU), and that the formal admission notice would be issued once the degree results are announced.The student, who argued his own case in court without a lawyer, told the bench that even after getting admission, transgender students face many problems because there is no proper reservation policy in place. He said this affects basic things like access to hostels, toilets, documentation requirements, and fee concessions.The bench appreciated the way the student had presented his case, saying:“We want to make sure that his admission fructifies and he is given the benefits mentioned in the NALSA judgment. I am saying this as a person who has been on the Bench for the last 12 years, to someone who is very deserving, as a party-in-person conducting a case with such responsibility, we want to see something is done… The appeal is filed since there is no policy for the State government for reservation.”The court then posted the matter for further hearing.