Trans student disqualified by NTA despite scoring higher than the cut-off

In a case of apparent disregard for LGBTQ rights, the NTA [National Testing Agency flouted the rules of UGC [University Grants Commission] to disqualify a Trans Student. Yashika, A M.A. final-year student at Punjab University studying Human Rights and Duties, shared her scorecard with The Mooknayak. "I have scored 138 in my subject and the cut-off for the PWD-VI-UR category for the subject is 108 for Assistant Professor, and as UGC mentioned in their notification-The subject-wise qualifying cut-offs for this category would be the lowest among SC/ST/OBC-NL/PWD/General-EWS categories in their corresponding subjects, I should not have been disqualified", she said.

NTA[National Testing Agency] conducted the NET [National Eligibility Test] on behalf of UGC

Yashika further complains that the NTA has not released the cut-off of the Third Gender category and also the number of candidates qualified in this category, as has been done for other categories.

Vertically, she belongs to the SC category and demands that they (NTA) [National Testing Agency] should have released a separate cut-off for Subcategories like SC-Third Gender and PWD-Third Gender.

Sharing her past experience with The Mooknayak she says "I had to struggle to get admission in the university and to get a hostel but still managed to study and get marks for UGC-NTA NET but I have been disqualified, it seems that in the future I will have to go to the court, even to breathe".

In the notification for the UGC-NET, NTA had clearly mentioned Third Gender as a category. Yashica informs that she has emailed the authorities in NTA and has initiated the process to file an RTI. Officials at NTA could not be reached by The Mooknayak.