Society will always have disputes to resolve, but not every issue can be resolved by going directly to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court said on Friday while expressing reluctance to continue hearing a population control PIL. .
A bench consisting of Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice JB Pardiwala was also reluctant to issue opinions to all states, as requested by petitioner Ashwini Upadhayay, on the plea which sought instructions from the Center and the states to take measures, including enforcement of a two-child standard, to control the country’s growing population.
You filed the petition. The notice has been published and their (governmental) attention has been sought. They looked into the problem and it is now up to them to make a political decision. Our job is done. Therefore, we will close the petition now, the bench said.
The sighting came when Upadhyay, a lawyer, said that since the population falls under the concurrent list of the Constitution, state governments can also make laws to control it.
He then asked for advice from all States on the matter.
We will not issue an opinion like this unless we are satisfied, the CJI said, adding how the court can issue a writ to the states on the issue of population control.
A society will always have some kind of disputes and these disputes need to be resolved and so it is not as if there is a zero problem society. There will always be some issues, but not all issues can be resolved by Section 32 (under which pleas, including PILs, are filed directly with the SC), the bench said.
The bench initially said it would close the petition, but later adjourned the hearing until October 11.
Earlier, on January 10, 2020, the highest court had requested the Centre’s response to Upadhyay’s plea challenging an order of the Delhi High Court which had dismissed a PIL requesting the introduction of certain measures including the standard of two children, to control the growing population of the country.
A bench consisting of then-Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant had issued opinions to the Center and others.
The appeal filed by Upadhyay challenged the High Court’s order of September 3, 2019, which stated that it was for Parliament and the state legislatures to enact laws and not for the court.
He said the High Court “failed to understand that the right to clean air, the right to clean water, the right to health, the right to peaceful sleep, the right to shelter, the right to means of subsistence and the right to education guaranteed by Articles 21 and 21A of the Constitution could not be guaranteed to all citizens without controlling the demographic explosion”.
“The High Court failed to understand that after detailed discussion, debate and comment, Entry 20-A was inserted into Schedule III of the 7th Schedule by the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976, which enables the Center and the states to enact population control and family planning legislation,” said the plea filed through attorney Ashwani Kumar Dubey.
He also said the High Court failed to take note that after extensive discussion, the National Constitutional Review Commission, one of the most senior judicial commissions headed by the former justice in leader of India, Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah, on March 31, 2002 recommended inserting Section 47A into the Constitution to control population explosion.
The High Court plea had claimed that the Indian population had ‘walked ahead’ of China as around 20% of Indians did not have Aadhaar cards and were therefore not counted, and there were also Rohingya crores and Bangladeshis living illegally. in the country.
He claimed that “population explosion is also the root cause of corruption”, besides being a contributing factor to heinous crimes like rape and domestic violence.
It also made the population explosion responsible for pollution and the scarcity of resources and jobs.
The petitioner argued that without population control campaigns such as ‘Clean India’ and ‘Save the Girl Child’ would not succeed.
He said that by the time the government provided accommodation for more than two crores of homeless people, the number of such people would have risen to 10 crores.
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