Rights of transgender persons – Changes in bank forms/applications etc: RBI

RBI/2014–15/572 DBR.No.Leg.BC.91/09.07.005/2014–15

April 23, 2015

It has been brought to our notice that trans­gen­der per­sons face dif­fi­cul­ties in open­ing accounts as there is no pro­vi­sion for them in the account open­ing and oth­er forms.

2. in this con­nec­tion, banks are advised to refer to the judge­ment dat­ed April 15, 2014 of the Supreme Court in the case of Nation­al Legal Ser­vices Author­i­ty v. Union of India and oth­ers [AIR 2014 SC 1863: (2014) 5 SCC 438] on treat­ing all trans­gen­der per­sons as ‘third gen­der’. The Supreme Court, in that case, upheld trans­gen­der per­sons’ right to decide their self-iden­ti­fied gen­der and direct­ed the Cen­tre and State Gov­ern­ment to grant legal recog­ni­tion of their gen­der iden­ti­ty such as male, female or as third gender.

1. Banks are, there­fore, direct­ed to include ‘third gen­der’ in all forms/applications etc. pre­scribed by the Reserve Bank or the banks them­selves, where­in any gen­der clas­si­fi­ca­tion is envisaged.

Yours faith­ful­ly,

(Rajin­der Kumar)
Chief Gen­er­al Manager