The petitioner's counsel argued that they have been making such collections for a number of years and has become a “customary right” which ought to be protected. The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition of some members of the kinnar (transgender) community seeking directions to the Uttar Pradesh government for demarcation of a defined territory for collection of badhai (customary offerings) in order to stop confrontation with other groups. A division bench of Justices Alok Mathur and Amitabh Kumar Rai, in an April 15 order, stated, “Extraction of money from any individual willfully or otherwise cannot be permitted and any citizen of this country can be directed to pay only such amounts of tax, cess or fee which can be legitimately extracted from such individuals in accordance with law.” “In any view of the matter such extraction of money cannot be legitimized and the prayer made in the writ petition cannot be accepted.…