Restriction on unvaccinated people violative of fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19 & 21 of the Constitution: Gauhati High Court

On 2nd July 2021, Gauhati High Court held that the recently released SOP by the State of Mizoram is in clear violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The bench comprising of Justice Michael Zothankhum and Justice Nelson Sailo stated that excluding unvaccinated persons from leaving their house and restricting them from earning their livelihood is against the fundamental rights protected under Articles 14, 19, and 21.  

Article 14 says, “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” The Court observed that since both vaccinated and un-vaccinated person can be a spreader and be infected from Covid -19 therefore, it is unjustified arbitrary, and unequal to keep only unvaccinated people on house arrest.

Further, the court stated that according to Article 19(6), the restriction on carrying an occupation can be only made when the restriction is made in the form of law, not by SOP which is an executive instruction. Therefore, this SOP is a clear violation of Article 19.

The Court also stated that the SOP imposes house arrest on a person merely because that person is an unvaccinated person whereas the others are allowed to move out of the house. SOP restricts unvaccinated persons until they are vaccinated and this may take a lot of time thus it’s a clear violation of the right to livelihood which is consequently a violation of the right to life under Article 21.

The court held that the SOP is against the public interest and not in consonance with Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Indian Constitution. The freedom allowed to vaccinated people should be allotted to unvaccinated people. The court asked the state to stick to the directions provided by the court and incorporate them in the SOP before the next hearing.

By Maitreyee Dubey (Member, SCLHR) & Shubhangi Gupta ( Secretary- Media: Outreach & Design, SCLHR)

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