Right to life

• Stating that the ‘Right to Live with Dignity’ includes not being “tied down by casteism”, the Delhi High Court has directed the CBSE to comply with the request of two siblings.

ABOUT ISSUE:

• The High Court has directed the CBSE to comply with the request of two brothers belonging to the Scheduled Caste community to update their father’s surname in their Class 10 and 12 certificates.
• In a plea before the court, the siblings said their father had decided to change his surname from ‘Mochi’ to ‘Nayak’ due to caste atrocities suffered by him daily.
• The judge said the petitioner brothers have every right to have an “honourable and respectable” identity in society and if they have suffered any disadvantage on account of their surname, they were “certainly entitled to a change of their identity that gives respectability to the petitioners in the societal structure”.

RIGHT TO LIFE (ARTICLE 21)

• Article 21: Protection of Life and Personal Liberty: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law.
• Article 21 is at the heart of the Constitution. It is our Constitution’s most organic and progressive provision.
• A person’s right to life and personal liberty can only be taken away through the legal process (as defined in Article 12) that has been established.
• Article 21 of the Constitution defines ‘life’ as more than just the act of breathing. It does not imply a just animal existence or a life of drudgery.
• It encompasses a far broader range of rights, including the right to live in dignity, the right to a livelihood, the right to health, the right to clean air, and so on.
• The main purpose of Article 21 is to ensure that when a person’s right to life or liberty is taken away by the state, it is done so exclusively in accordance with the law.

RIGHT TO LIVE WITH HUMAN DIGNITY

• In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India[iii], the Supreme Court gave a new dimension to Article 21 and held that the right to live is not merely a physical right but includes within its ambit the right to live with human dignity.