New Delhi: A fresh PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre to frame effective rules, regulations and guidelines to control population explosion.
The plea filed by Devkinandan Thakur, a resident of Mathura, sought direction from the Central government to ascertain the feasibility of enacting a stringent population control law to secure fundamental rights including the right to air, right to water, right to food, right to health, right to sleep, right to shelter, right to livelihood, right to justice and right to education.
“The PIL is seeking direction to the Centre to control population explosion in order to secure the basic rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 15, 19, 21 of the Constitution,” the petition stated.
It added, “Petitioner submits that right to clean air, right to drinking water, right to health, right to peaceful sleep, right to shelter, right to livelihood and right to education guaranteed under Articles 21-21A, can’t be secured to all citizens without effective population control, but, Centre has not implemented National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution’s 24th proposal till date.”
“125 crore Indians have Aadhaar Card while around 20 per cent i.e. 25 crore citizens are without Aadhaar, and around 5 crore Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators, illegally residing in India. From this, it is evident that the total population of India is more than 150 crore and India has marched ahead of China,” the plea added.
Earlier, Firoz Bakht Ahmed, grandnephew of India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay and others also filed similar pleas.
The Centre had earlier told the Supreme Court that India is unequivocally against forcing family planning on its people and any coercion to have a certain number of children is counter-productive and leads to demographic distortions.
In its affidavit filed in the top court, the Health Ministry had told the apex court that the family welfare programme in the country is voluntary in nature, which enables couples to decide the size of their family and adopt family planning methods best suited to them, according to their choice and without any compulsion.
The pleas said population explosion is the root cause of more than 50 per cent of problems in India.
The PILs sought directions to the Centre to ascertain the feasibility of making the “Two Child” Law as a criterion for government jobs, aids and subsidies, right to vote, right to contest, right to property, right to free shelter etc.
The government should declare the first Sunday of every month as Health Day in place of Polio Day to spread awareness of the population explosion and provide contraceptive pills, condoms, vaccines etc. to EWS and BPL families, with polio vaccines, said one of the pleas.
The pleas added that as an alternative relief issue directions to the Law Commission of India to prepare a comprehensive Report on Population Explosion within three months and suggest the ways to control it.
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