New Delhi, Aug 8 : The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre regarding a plea for an all-encompassing law to limit the “population explosion” in the country.Inquiring for the government’s response the bench of Justices S.Abdul Nazeer and J.K.Maheshwari tagged the petition with the same plea made by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which was filed by advocate Ashutosh dubey, sought direction from the Centre to manage the growing population in order to protect the fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 14 15, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
“Population growth is the main of the cause of the plight of our International Ranking.We rank as 103rd in the Global Hunger Index, 43rd in Suicide Rate, the 168th position in the Literacy Rate, the 133rd position in World Happiness Index, the 125th position in Gender Discrimination, 124th in Minimum Pay 42nd in Employment Rate and 69th in Rule of Law Index 43rd in Quality-of-Life Index, 51st in Financial Development Index, the 177th position in Environment Performance Index, the 139th position in GDP Per Capita,” the plea stated.
“The harm to citizens, and especially women is incredibly large.The dangers of the explosion of population on the economy and its effects are frequently discussed.
But, the consequences that repeated childbirth has on women is rarely discussed outside of specializations.The rate of grand multiparity defined as having more than four viable births in the developing world like India is 20 percent while it is just 2 percent in advanced countries.
The negative effects of repeated pregnancies on women and their babies are devastating.In India there is a high rate of malnutrition and anaemia in pregnant mothers.
This is made more serious with repeated pregnancy, which can harm their health and resulting in unfavourable pregnancy outcomes.There is a higher risk of abortions in these mothers.
Mothers are more susceptible to infections with multiple pregnancies,” the plea read.
It was stated that the Centre adopted its obligation on states even though “Population Control and Family Planning” is listed in the concurrent list.
Therefore, the Centre can pass laws to establish rules as well as policies to limit the growth of population and is the greatest threat to democracy and socio-economic development.The Centre has not even written any Bill to date,” the plea stated.
The plea requested directions from the Centre to assess the possibility of adopting a strict laws to regulate population in order to ensure fundamental rights , primarily the rule of law and air quality and water and food and health and sleep and shelter and shelter, right to livelihood and justice, as well as the right to education, guaranteed under Articles 14 19, 21 21, 21A.
“In the other scenario, you can direct the Law Commission of India to review the laws on population control and policies for population control of the developed nations and suggest steps to control population in order to ensure the rights of all citizens ., ” it asked.
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