The De Facto Registry: Mandatory Medical Reporting, Informational Self-Determination and the Puttaswamy Framework: A Comment on Section 7(1A) of the 2026 Transgender Amendment

Section 7(1A) of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act 2026 requires every medical institution in which a person undergoes surgery to change gender to furnish that person’s details to the District Magistrate and a medical authority, and the person must apply for a certificate reflecting the change. The privacy objection to this provision forms one of the issues in the pending constitutional challenge; this article works it through in full. It argues that the reporting and certification obligations together assemble a de facto state registry of transgender persons and their medical histories, which cannot be reconciled with the right to informational self-determination recognised in K S Puttaswamy v Union of India. Working through the proportionality standard that Puttaswamy laid down, together with the procedural-safeguards requirement added by Kaul J, the article contends that compelled disclosure of gender-affirming care to executive authorities, absent consent, a data-protection regime, or any appellate mechanism, cannot survive constitutional scrutiny. Drawing on the German census decision from which the concept descends, it further argues that the mandate is the structural completion of the amendment’s departure from NALSA v Union of India, converting a self-declared identity into a state-surveilled one.