MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government on Monday moved the Bombay High Court challenging an order passed by the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal directing it to create a provision for transgenders in the application form for posts under the home department.

The petition was mentioned before a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Abhay Ahuja seeking urgent hearing to stay the tribunal order. It would hear the matter on November 30.

A transgender person, Arya Pujari, who aspired to be a police constable, had approached the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT). After an advertisement was issued for the recruitment of police constables, Pujari applied online. However, in the application, only two genders were mentioned – male and female – and no third gender was mentioned, because of which Pujari could not fill in the online form. The MAT on November 14 directed the state government to create a third option for transgenders, after the two options of male and female, in the application form for all recruitments under the home department.

The tribunal had also said the government should fix a criteria for physical standards and tests for transgenders.