Population explosion: SC rejects petition seeking 2-child law

New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India rejected a set of petitions that sought enforcement of a two-child law to control the rising population. The court said that the matter of population must be handled by the government, PTI reports.

"Population is not something that one fine day it stops," a bench of Justices SK Kaul and AS Oka observed orally.

Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, one of the petitioners, had challenged an order of the Delhi High Court dismissing a plea which demanded the same. He said a report from the Law Commission on the issue is very important.

The plea said the high court failed to appreciate that the 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 of the Constitution could not be secured to all citizens without controlling the population explosion.

The plea in the high court alleged the population of India had marched ahead of China, as about 20 per cent of Indians did not have Aadhaar and, therefore, were not accounted for, and there were also crores of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis living illegally in the country.

It had claimed the "population explosion is also the root cause of corruption", apart from being a contributory factor behind heinous crimes like rape and domestic violence.

After the Supreme Court said it was not inclined to entertain the plea, he withdrew it.

Besides his plea, the bench also refused to entertain some other petitions filed on the issue, prompting the advocates to withdraw them.

"How do we go into enacting a legislation?" the bench asked at the outset.

When Mr Upadhyay argued his prayer was intended to press for a direction to the Law Commission to prepare a comprehensive report on the issue, the bench asked how can the commission prepare a report on the population explosion.

The bench observed the issue raised was about the two-child norm, and it was for the government to consider it.

It said the court could not go into this as there were several social and family issues involved.

"This is for the government to do," the bench said, asking, "Is this an issue on which we should interfere?"

"We have better things to do," the top court orally observed.

At the end of the hearing, Mr Upadhyay said India has around two per cent land and four per cent water but 20 per cent of the population of the world.

On January 10, 2020, the top court sought replies from the Centre and others to the plea challenging the high court order.

The appeal had challenged the September 3, 2019, high court order, which said it was for Parliament and state legislatures to enact laws and not for the court.