The Rajasthan High Court has modified its judgment delivered on Monday to remove its observations on the newly enacted Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. Through a clarificatory order on Thursday, the court replaced its previous remarks about the amendment diluting constitutional guarantees with a statement about the country’s changing legal landscape.

In its original judgment, the court had inserted an epilogue written by Justice Arun Monga which observed that the new law, which replaces the principle of self-perceived gender identity with a system of medical certification, “marks a departure from that said constitutional baseline.” It had noted that the legal recognition of gender identity was being reduced to a “contingent, State-mediated entitlement” and that statutory developments should not be implemented in a manner that “dilutes constitutional guarantees”.

These remarks have now been deleted. In the updated epilogue to its judgment, the court retained its premise that the right to self-identify one’s gender “is an intrinsic facet of dignity, autonomy, and personal liberty under Articles 14, 15, 16 and 21 of the Constitution, bottom-line being, selfhood is not a matter of concession, it is a matter of right.”

Addressing the 2026 amendment, the revised order states: “Be that as it may, the directions in the main judgment have been passed as per the prevailing legal position on the date of the judgment and are meant to be complied with accordingly.”

The court further clarified that its epilogue is a “statement of facts in the process of changing legal landscape.” It added a caveat directing the state government to ensure that any policy framework evolved pursuant to the court’s directions remains “within the contours of the existing law as on the date of the judgment i.e. 30.03.2026.”

In the deleted portions, the court had previously stated: “It is now proposed that legal recognition of gender identity shall be conditioned upon certification, scrutiny, or other forms of administrative endorsement. What was recognized by the Supreme Court as an inviolable aspect of personhood now risks being reduced to a contingent, State-mediated entitlement.” The court had also stated that the rights of transgender persons must not be “rendered illusory by procedural constraints”.

The epilogue was attached to a judgment stemming from a petition filed by Ganga Kumari, a transgender woman seeking “horizontal reservation” for transgender persons in public employment. Horizontal reservation is a separate quota provided within existing vertical reservation categories, such as those for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

The Rajasthan government had previously issued a notification placing all transgender persons in the OBC category. The court struck this down, noting that placing all transgender persons into the OBC category effectively extinguished the pre-existing reservation benefits of transgender individuals born into SC or ST communities, forcing them to choose between their gender identity and their caste-based reservation benefit.

Ruling in Kumari’s favour, the bench comprising Justices Monga and Yogendra Kumar Purohit directed the state government to grant a three per cent additional weightage in marks for transgender candidates across all reservation categories in public employment and educational institutions, until a comprehensive reservation policy is framed.