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While issuing comprehensive directions, the Court noted that these proceedings called for a systemic recalibration of criminal justice system, wherein vulnerability is not treated as an afterthought, but as a constitutionally significant determinant for humane treatment of prisoners.
The Court held that a 21-year-old woman, being an adult, is legally competent to decide her residence, marriage, and education, and directed that she shall not be compelled to return to her parental home or treated as a missing person, as these matters of personal choice are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The Court held that the externment orders were unsustainable, as FIRs for agitations without police permission could not justify such action, which infringed upon the petitioner’s fundamental rights of free speech, expression, and dignity.
The High Court held that the constitutional conscience of the Court favours the child’s right to identity over an alleged father’s concern for reputation. Social embarrassment of adults may yield where necessary; the rights of innocent children cannot be sacrificed merely to avoid discomfort.
The PIL highlighted the widespread absence of properly equipped Ladies’ Bar Rooms and essential amenities in High Courts, District Courts, Taluka Courts, Tribunals, Revenue Courts, and Commissions across the country.
At the same time, the Court stated that mere transportation of an accused from a police station to the Court for production before the Magistrate, even if done on foot, under unavoidable circumstances, would not ipso facto constitute a violation of fundamental rights, unless it is shown that such an act was done deliberately to humiliate or with mala fide intention.
“The Right to Life enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution is not merely a guarantee against the unlawful taking of life, but a positive mandate upon the State to ensure a safe environment where human life is preserved and valued.”
“While the organised sectors may be regulated through government orders and legislative intervention, the unorganised sector requires a more facilitative mechanism. However, beyond regulatory frameworks, what remains imperative is, a sustained and pervasive effort to sensitise all segments of society, reaching every corner of the State to foster awareness, empathy and compliance.”
Acknowledging that right to die with dignity is inseparable from the right to receive quality palliative care, Supreme Court for the first time allowed passive euthanasia by withdrawal of the applicant’s Clinically Assisted Nutrition and Hydration.
“Making adequate provisions for toilets / sanitation facilities concerns the basic human rights under Article 21 of the Constitution/”
While the media enjoys freedom of speech and expression, but such right is not absolute and stands correspondingly delimited by the right of an individual to dignity and reputation.
Read about MeitY’s SOP mandating a 24-hour deadline to remove non-consensual intimate imagery online, empowering victims to reclaim their digital dignity.
“Any attempt to stigmatize or marginalize an entire class of persons offends the guarantee of equality before law under Article 14 and freedom of expression with reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2).”
“Beggars’ homes cannot be conceived as quasi-penal facilities. Their role must be restorative, not retributive — places of recovery, skill-building, and reintegration into society”.
“It is, thus, high time that the State formulates a uniform policy to deal with the burial/cremation/shamshan/any kind of public place utilised for the purpose of performing post-death rituals.”
“The concerned Court has treated the DNA test as a frolicsome act and ordered as a matter of course. Right to privacy and dignity is lost sight of.”
The Court opined that continuing such an inhuman practice even after 78 years of the country getting its freedom and after 75 years of the Constitution being enacted and promising social and economic justice to its citizens, would be betraying the promise given by the people of India to themselves.
“The distribution and transmission of the video reached such an extent that the advocate was subjected to scrutiny about the video and its contents by various individuals including her clients and peers in the same profession.”
The instant writ petition seeks Court direction to prevent the continued circulation of obscene video, involving petitioner 1’s daughter and petitioner 2’s husband on Instagram, without their consent.
Reiterating the call for prison reforms, the Court said that reforms are necessary for creating a better environment and prison culture to ensure the prisoners enjoy their right to dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution.