In a welcome judgment, the Kerala High Court on 15th March ruled that the 21-year-old transgender Hina Haneefa can become a part of the National Cadet Corps (NCC).
This comes in a time when she had gone to the court while challenging the NCC’s decision to exclude her from the women’s wing of the corps.
The ruling was delivered by Justice Anu Sivaraman according to which, a transgender person can be enrolled in the NCC while keeping with her self-perceived identity.
Hina Haneefa was born as a male child in Malapuram, Kerala, and has three other sisters. From the very starting, she had an inclination towards the NCC.
She had previously joined the male cadet wing of the NCC and even earned an ‘A certificate’ back in grade 10.
After collecting over a lakh rupees in two years of time, at the age of 20, she decided to go through a sex reassignment surgery.
Following the surgery, Hina then moved to Thiruvananthapuram to join the University college which had reservations for transgender students.
She was looking forward to joining the NCC unit of the college but had to face obstacles before she was even permitted.
Before approaching the court, she had previously made two appeals, one to the NCC unit of the college and the second to the Commanding Officer of NCC Thiruvananthapuram in 2019.
After not getting any response, she moved to the Kerala High Court in the same year where she challenged Section 6 of the NCC Act 1948 that breaks down the enrollment process of people in two genders i.e, make and female.
Haneefa’s courage and diligence should be celebrated as such judgments allow transgenders to join paramilitary and military services.