The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has ruled that ‘Kinnars’ (transgender persons) have no legal right to collect ‘Badhai’—customary offerings or gifts given on auspicious occasions.
A division bench of Justice Alok Mathur and Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai made this observation while rejecting a petition moved by Rekha Devi, a member of transgender community, for protection against alleged encroachment of her ‘territorial jurisdiction’ for collection of customary gifts by other members of the community
The petitioner argued that such collection was taking place for many years and translated into a customary right. However, the court ruled that it did not have any legal backing.
“There is no legitimate or legal backing permitting any person or individual from collecting / extracting any money, tax, fee or cess from any individual except in accordance with law. Such rights as sought by the petitioner are not recognised by law and accordingly the courts in its power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India cannot legitimise the acts of the petitioner without there being any backing of law,” the bench said in its April 15 order that was uploaded recently.
The court further said a citizen can be directed to pay only such amount of tax, cess or fee which can be legitimately extracted from them in accordance with law. It, thus, refused to accept the request made in the writ petition, stating that such extraction of money cannot be legitimised in any manner.
“In case any indulgence is shown in the respect of the petitioner there may be several other persons/gangs which may be operating and making illegal extraction/extortion from individual and such illegal extraction has never been sanctioned by law in this country and such extraction is an offence under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita,” the court observed.
It was earlier submitted that the petitioner belongs to the transgender community in Gonda district and has long been exercising the customary right to collect ‘Badhai’ in a particular area. The plea also sought a direction for demarcation of areas for collection of ‘Badhai’.
The court ruled that since no right to collect ‘Badhai’ exists, it cannot protect such practice. “We have noticed that even as per the provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 no such right has been sought to be protected though in the said Act the transgender person was assigned to determine his/her gender. A new bill of 2026 is under consideration of Parliament of India which is a major departure from the Act of 2019 with regard to determination of gender of an individual,” the court said.
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