SC notice to Centre on plea to regulate population explosion

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a PIL seeking directions to the Centre to border effective rules, regulations and guidelines to manage population explosion.

A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Vikram Nath sought a response from the Centre and tagged the plea together with similar or pending PILs.

The order of the apex court came on a PIL filed by Firoz Bakht Ahmed, grandnephew of India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

Earlier, the highest court had sought a response from the Centre on the pleas filed by Devkinandan Thakur, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay et al.

In his plea, Ahmed stated that population explosion is that the root reason behind quite 50 per cent of problems in India.

The PIL sought directions to the Centre to establish the feasibility of creating the ‘Two-Child Law’ as criteria for state jobs, aids and subsidies, right to vote, right to contest, right to property, right to free shelter, etc.

The PIL sought directions to the Centre to establish the feasibility of creating the ‘Two-Child Law’ as criteria for presidency jobs, aids and subsidies, right to vote, right to contest, right to property, right to free shelter, etc.

“The government should declare the primary Sunday of each month as Health Day in situ of Polio Day to spread awareness on population explosion and supply oral contraceptive, condoms, vaccines, etc to EWS and BPL families, with polio vaccines,” said the plea.

It added that as alternative relief, the petitioner has sought directions from the Law Commission of India to organize a comprehensive report on the population explosion within three months and suggest ways to regulate it.

The Centre had earlier told the Supreme Court that India is unequivocally against forcing planning on its people and any coercion to possess a particular number of youngsters is counter-productive and results in demographic distortions.

In its affidavit filed within the top court, the Health Ministry had told the apex court that the family welfare programme within the country is voluntary in nature, which enables couples to choose the dimensions of their family and adopt birth prevention methods best suited to them, per their choice and with none compulsion.