Supreme Court stays proceedings before HCs on pleas challenging transgender law

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one. Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary. The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. Updated - June 15, 2026 03:24 pm IST - New Delhi On May 4, the Supreme Court had sought responses from the Centre and others on separate pleas challenging the validity of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. File | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap The Supreme Court on Monday (June 15, 2026) stayed further proceedings before the high courts on petitions challenging the provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. A Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice V. Mohana agreed to hear the Centre's petition seeking to consolidate and transfer all pending pleas challenging the Act from various high courts to the Supreme Court. Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told the Bench that the issue relates to constitutional validity of a central Act. "Issue notice," the Bench said, adding, "further proceedings before the high courts shall remain stayed". On May 27, SG Mehta had mentioned the matter before the Supreme Court and sought an urgent listing of the transfer petitions. The top law officer had said that since multiple high courts were currently seized of the matter, there was a significant risk of "divergent views" and conflicting judicial rulings on the validity of the federal legislation. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, has come under intense legal scrutiny from human rights activists and members of the LGBTQ+ community. The primary bone of contention is the removal of the concept of "self-identification" of gender, a right previously upheld by the Supreme Court in its landmark NALSA judgment. The 2026 Amendment reportedly mandates medical or administrative interventions for gender recognition, which the petitioners argue violates the right to dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy. On May 4, the Supreme Court had sought responses from the Centre and others on separate pleas challenging the validity of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. On March 25, Parliament passed a Bill to amend the law on the protection and rights of transgender persons, which excludes social orientations from the ambit of the statute. It received the President's assent on March 30. The Act provides for graded punishment based on the gravity of harm inflicted on such people. The petitioners challenging the validity of the Act have referred to the Supreme Court's 2014 judgment which had upheld the transgender persons' right to decide their self-identified gender. judiciary (system of justice) / transgender Copyright© 2026, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

Supreme Court stays proceedings before HCs on pleas challenging transgender law

Key takeaways

Also covered by

Supreme Court stays proceedings before HCs on pleas challenging transgender law

Key takeaways

Also covered by

More in international