A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking direction to the Union of India to frame effective rules, regulations, and guidelines to control population explosion and to ascertain the feasibility of making Two-Child Law as criteria for government jobs, aids, and subsidies, right to vote, right to contest, right to property, right to free shelter, etc.
The petitioner sought direction to the Centre to declare the first Sunday of every month as ‘Health Day’ in place of ‘Polio Day’ to spread awareness on population explosion and provide contraceptive pills, condoms, vaccines etc. to EWS and BPL families, with polio vaccines and direction to the Law Commission of India to prepare a comprehensive Report on Population Explosion within three months and suggest the ways to control it.
The PIL has been filed by Firoz Bakht Ahmed, Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad through Advocate Ashutosh Dubey.
According to the petition, at present, 125 crore Indians have aadhaar cards, around 20% viz. 25 crore citizens (particularly children) are without AADHAAR, and around 05 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 ahead of China. India have only 2% of agriculture land of the total land and only 4 % drinking water. However, our population is 20 % of the world. In compare to China agricultural area in India is only one-third of China and America and the rate of population growth is seven times of US. In US, 10000 children are born every day and in India 70,000 children.
Unsustainable population growth and lack of access to reproductive health care also puts pressure on human communities, exacerbating food and water shortages, reducing resilience in the face of climate change, and making it harder for the most vulnerable communities to rise out of intergenerational poverty, said the PIL.
The plea alleged that the increasing human population is putting large amounts of pressure on our natural resources and is contributing to climate change, leading many people to call for increased population control—especially for poorer communities. While the resources are limited, increasing population figures are adding pressure on both our available resources and the rate of climate change. The human population has almost doubled since 1960. It is no secret that humans have too large an impact on the sustainability of our planet. It is submitted that Overpopulation is the “elephant in the room” and the direct cause of deepening poverty and environmental degradation.
“Projections around population are used to make global health and development policy. They’re critical for planning, especially about climate change. The country faces serious social and economic problems associated with overpopulation in the years to come. Overly populated regions lead to degradation of land and resources, pollution, and detrimental living conditions. Serious reforms are needed to ensure that India’s population will not continue to grow. Better policies, more education, and urbanization could help India to reach population target goals,” urged the Petitioner.
The Petition highlights that Population explosion is the root cause of most of our problems including shortage of water, forests and land, Roti, Kapra and Makan (Bread, clothes and house), poverty and unemployment, hunger and malnutrition and air, water, soil and sound pollution. It is also the root cause of the crowds in trains, police stations, tehsils and jails, High Courts and Apex Court. Population explosion is the root cause of theft, dacoity and snatching, domestic violence, physical and mental harassment of women and separatism, fanaticism, stone pelting etc. From a survey, conducted on thieves, dacoits, snatchers, rapists and mercenaries, it is apparent that about 90% criminals and offenders are such that their parents have not followed policy of “Ham Do – Hamare Do”.
The Petitioner submitted that we celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November every year, but violence on women is increasing and the root cause is population explosion. After birth of a girl, the woman is subjected to physical and mental harassment, though, as per medical science, it depends on the Husband. Some people abandon their first wife if 3-4 daughters are born, and perform second marriage to fulfil their desire to have a son. For daughters, to have good health, social economic and political justice, liberty of thoughts, expression, belief, faith, and worship, equality of status and opportunity, a population control law, based on the Model of China, is urgently required.
“Population explosion is also the root cause of the pitiable condition of our International Ranking. We are ranked 103rd in the Global Hunger Index, 43rd in Suicide Rate, 168th in Literacy Rate, 133rd in World Happiness Index, 125th in Gender Discrimination, 124th in Minimum Pay, 42nd in Employment Rate, 66th in Rule of Law Index, 43rd in Quality of Life Index, 51st in Financial Development Index, 177th in Environment Performance Index, 139th in GDP Per Capita. However, we are the first in the matter of draining underground water, though we possess only 4% of ground water and merely 2% of agricultural land of the world.
Population explosion is also the root cause of corruption. We are ranked 66th in 1998, 72nd in 1999, 69th in 2000, 71st in 2001 and 2002, 83rd in 2003, 90th in 2004, 88th in 2005, 70th in 2006, 72nd in 2007, 85th in 2008, 84th in 2009, 87th in 2010, 95th in 2011, 94th in 2012, 87th in 2013, 85th in 2014, 76th in 2015, 79th in 2016, 81st in 2017 and 79th in 2018, the Petition said.
The petitioner further laid emphassis that we celebrate National Pollution Control Day on 2nd December and we have made immense efforts to control pollution. But, air, water, soil and sound pollution is constantly increasing due to population explosion. Therefore, success of Clean India and Healthy India Campaign is doubtful in the absence of a strict population control law.
“The NCRWC after making immense efforts for two years and elaborate discussion had suggested addition of Article 47A in the Constitution and formulation of Population Control Law. Till now the Constitution has been amended 125 times, the decision of the Apex Court has been altered twice, hundreds of new laws have been enacted, but population control Law, utterly required for country, is not made, though it will curtail more than 50% problems of India”, reads the Petition.
It is pertinent to note that the Supreme Court has allowed a plea to make the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare a party to a PIL that has sought certain steps, including two-child norm, to control the country’s growing population. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna passed the directions on May 7 on the plea filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
Source: ILNS