Sexual harassment law protects transgender women too: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench has held that a transgender woman can seek protection under provisions against sexual harassment, rejecting an accused man’s argument that the law did not apply to her.Justice Mehroz K Pathan dismissed a plea by Vishal Sunil Ingle, a 24-year-old Agniveer in the Indian Army, challenging the rejection of his discharge application. The November 3 order allows the case to proceed to trial, Bar & Bench reported.The complainant alleged that Ingle sexually assaulted her on a false promise of marriage in October 2025, according to the publication.COURT UPHOLDS RIGHT TO SELF-IDENTIFYIngle’s counsel argued that Section 75 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which deals with sexual harassment, applied only to a “woman”, defined as a female human being, and not to a transgender complainant. The court rejected this argument at the discharge stage, relying on the Supreme Court’s NALSA versus Union of India judgment on gender identity.“The perusal of the FIR would show that the complainant/victim has identified herself to be a woman and the aforesaid self-determination cannot be questioned at least at the present stage while the accused is seeking discharge,” the court said, according to Bar & Bench. The court also noted that the complainant had undergone hormone treatment in furtherance of her gender identity.'LATER CERTIFICATE NO BAR TO PROTECTION'The defence also questioned the applicability of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, because the complainant received her identity certificate after the alleged incidents.The court held that the later issuance of the certificate did not prevent her from seeking protection under the Act.It found sufficient material in the charge-sheet to proceed against Ingle under Section 75 of the BNS and Section 18(d) of the Transgender Persons Act. Whether the physical relationship was consensual, as Ingle claimed, would have to be examined during trial, the court said.- Ends