The Amendment came into force on March 30, 2026. Within five days, it faced a Supreme Court petition, an international rebuke, and a moment of judicial self-censorship.
On April 3, 2026, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and Zainab Javid Patel — both members of the National Council of Transgender Persons — filed an 886-page petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Act as unconstitutional under Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21. The petition's central question: 'Whether the State, through the instrument of legislation, may define who a person is, and in so doing, substitute its biological or socio-medical classification for the lived, autonomous, and self-perceived identity of a human being.' As of the date of this issue, no court response — listing, admission, or stay — has been reported.
On approximately April 2, the UN Human Rights Office issued a statement: 'We regret the fast passage of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, without adequate stakeholder consultation. The amendments risk setting back hard-won rights of transgender people, replacing self-identification with mandatory medical verification processes.' Over 140 lawyers and activists had separately written to the President before assent urging her not to sign the Bill.
On March 30 — the same day the President granted assent — Rajasthan HC Justice Arun Monga uploaded a judgment in Ganga Kumari v. State of Rajasthan containing an epilogue that described the Amendment as a departure from the constitutional baseline established in NALSA, characterising it as reducing selfhood to 'a contingent, state-mediated entitlement.' On April 2, the court issued a revised order deleting the epilogue entirely, stating the critical text had been 'included by mistake.' The original epilogue no longer exists in the official court record; its contents are known only from news reporting.