SC to hear plea on population control on 14 August, a year after PM’s I-Day speech on it

The Supreme Court will hear the issue of population control law, including a two-child norm, on 14 August, exactly a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of population explosion in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort.

In a Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging a last year’s order of Delhi High Court, BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay said that while passing the impugned order, the High Court has failed to appreciate 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 and 21A, cannot be secured to all citizens without controlling the population explosion.

“The High Court failed to appreciate that after detailed discussion, debate and feedback, Entry 20-A was inserted in List III of the 7th Schedule through 42nd Amendment in the Constitution in 1976, which permits Central and State to enact law on Population Control and Family Planning,” the petition said.

In January, the SC had sought the Centre’s reply to the petition. It had issued notices to Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the Law Commission of India.

The court, he said in the SLP, also failed to appreciate that after compressive discussion, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC), one of the most eminent Judicial Commission, headed by former Chief Justice of India Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah on 31 March 2002 recommended to insert Article 47A in the Constitution to control population explosion. This is to be noted that the MGNREGA, RTE, RTI and RTF were recommended by the NCRWC.

At present, around 125 crore Indians have Aadhaar, around 20% viz. 25 crore citizens (including children) are without Aadhaar, and around 5 crore Bangladeshi and Rohangiya intruders illegally reside in India. From this, it is evident that the total population of our country is more than 150 crore and we have marched much ahead of China. We have around 2% agriculture land of the world and merely 4% drinking water. However, our population is 20% of the world. If we compare ourselves with China, our agricultural area is around one-third of China, however, the rate of population growth is more than three times of China. In China 11 children are born every minute and in India 35 children born every minute.

He said population explosion is the root cause of most of our problems including shortage of drinking water, forests, land, food, clothes, house, poverty and unemployment, hunger and malnutrition and air, water, soil and sound pollution. “It is also the root cause of crowds in trains, police stations, tehsils, jails and courts. It is the root cause of theft, dacoity and snatching, domestic violence, separatism, fanaticism, etc. Population explosion is the root cause of more than 50% of the problems of our country,” he added.