Supreme Court notice to Centre on plea challenging guidelines debarring blood donation by transgenders

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Union government, NACO, on a plea, challenging the constitutional validity of Blood Donor rules of 2017, which permanently restrained transgender persons, female sex workers and LGBTQI persons from donating blood.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra sought a response from the Centre and the National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC) and National Aids Control Organisation (NACO), on the petition filed by Sharif D Rangnekar, who claimed to be gay.

Rangnekar, the director of Rainbow Literature Festival contended that a blanket prohibition is a violation of the right to equality, dignity and life protected under Articles 14, 15, 17 and 21 of the Constitution.

"Such guidelines violate the right to live with dignity, and do not afford full membership of living in a society to LGBTQ+ community and thus, reduces them to second class citizenship," he stated.

The petitioner claimed the guidelines are based on a highly prejudicial and presumptive view taken with regard to gay men in the 1980s in the United States of America.

The guidelines since have been revisited by majority of countries, including the USA, the United Kingdom, Israel and Canada, amongst others, as they came out with revised norms for blood donors which do not impose a blanket restriction on gay men or gender queer persons from donating blood.

"Viewed from a scientific perspective, such a blanket restriction on blood donation is based on an assumption that a particular group of persons may be suffering from sexually transmitted diseases," his plea said.

"The medical technology and education, especially in the field of haematology has progressed by leaps and bounds in the 21st Century and screening of blood donors is conducted for every donation before a possible transfusion. In such era, a blanket prohibition emanating from a highly discriminatory view of gay persons, does not stand to reason," the plea added.

Rangnekar sought a direction that clauses 12 and 51 of the General criteria under Blood Donor Guidelines and Blood Donor Referral, 2017, is discriminatory and unconstitutional as it excludes gay/LGBTQI persons, permanently, from donating blood to others.

He pleaded the guidelines should allow gay and LGBTQI persons to donate blood, with reasonable restrictions based on ‘screen and defer’ or ‘assess and test’ policies.

He sought a direction for the authorities to carry out sensitisation programmes, while dealing with gay/ LGBTQI persons, who donated blood.

The petition was filed through advocates Rohin Bhatt and Ibad Mushtaq.