1.

WHETHER THE STATE OF ZEDELLIN, BY PREVENTING THE PERSONS IN

DETENTION CENTERS FROM EARNING MONEY BY WORKING AND
MAKING USE OF THEIR SKILLS AND FACULTIES DENIED THE RIGHT TO
LIVELIHOOD.

[1] It is humbly submitted to the Hon’ble Court of Justice that the respondent, by preventing the
persons in detention centers from earning money by working and making use of their skills and
faculties indeed denied the right to livelihood. According to Bhagwati, J., Article 21 “embodies a
constitutional value of supreme importance in a democratic society.” Similarly, Iyer, J., has
characterized Article 21 as “the procedural Magna Carta protective of life and liberty. This right
has been held to be the heart of the Constitution, the most organic and progressive provision in
our living constitution, the foundation of our laws. Also, Article 21 of the constitution of India
applies to natural persons. The right is available to every person, citizen or alien. Thus, even a
foreigner can claim this right. 

[2] The Supreme Court in the case Board of Trustees of the Port of Bombay v. Dilipkumar
Raghavendranath Nandkarni1, came to hold that “the right to life” guaranteed by Article 21
includes “the right to livelihood”. Also, the Supreme Court in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal
Corporation2, popularly known as the “Pavement Dwellers Case” , implied that ‘right to
livelihood’ is born out of the ‘right to life’, as no person can live without the means of living,
that is, the means of Livelihood. The court, in this case, observed that: “The sweep of the right
to life conferred by Art.21 is wide and far-reaching. It does not mean, merely that life cannot be
extinguished or taken away as, for example, by the imposition and execution of death sentence,
except according to procedure established by law. That is but one aspect of the right to life. An
equally important facet of the right to life is the right to livelihood because no person can live

1
Board of Trustees of the Port of Bombay v. Dilipkumar Raghavendranath Nandkarni: AIR 1983 SC 109: (1983) 1
SCC 124

2
Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation: AIR 1986 SC 180
without the means of livelihood.” A similar contention has been held in D.K. Yadav v. J.M.A.
Industries3 & Hariraj L. Chulani v. Bar council of Maharashtra & Goa4.

[3] By articulating the close relationship between life and livelihood, the court stated that,
leaving aside what makes life livable, must be deemed to be an integral component of the right to
life and also depriving a person of his right to livelihood is similar as to deprive him of his life.
Referring to the directive principles of State policy such as Art. 39 (a), 37, 41, the court has
pointed out that if these directive principles obligate the state to secure to the citizens and
adequate means of livelihood and the right to work, “it would be sheer pedantry to exclude the
right to livelihood from the content of the right to life.

[4] Article 21, confers on every person the fundamental right to life and personal liberty which
has become an inexhaustible source of many other rights. 5 These rights are as much available to
non citizens as to citizens.6 These rights have been given paramount position by our courts.7

[5] Right to life includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it,
namely, the bare necessaries of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter and facilities
for reading, writing and expressing oneself in diverse forms, freely moving about and mixing and
commingling with fellow human beings.8

[6] The protection of Article 21 is available even to convicts in jail. The convicts are not by mere
reason of their conviction deprived of all the fundamental rights that they otherwise possess.
Even a convict is entitled to the precious right guaranteed under Article 21 and he shall not be
deprived of his life and personal liberty except by a procedure established by law. In Maneka
Gandhi v. Union of India, the Supreme Court gave a new dimension to Article 21whereby it has
interpreted Article 21 so as to have widest possible amplitude.

3
D.K. Yadav v. J.M.A. Industries, (1993) 3 SCC 259
4
Hariraj L. Chulani v. Bar council of Maharashtra & Goa , (1996) 3 SCC 345 : AIR 1996 SC 1708
5
Menaka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978)SCC 248: AIR 1978 SC 597, 620
6
National Human Rights Commission v. State of Arunachal Pradesh, (1996) 1 SCC 742: AIR 1996 SC 1234,
Chairman, Railway Board v. Chandrima Das, (2000) 2 SCC 465: AIR 2000 SC 988; Amir Hamza v. Union of India,
(2003) 12 SCC 213 ; Noor Mohammed v. Union of India, (2003) 12 SCC 218.
7
Kehar Singh v. Union of India, (1989) 1 SCC 204: AIR 1989 SC 653.
8
Ibid, (SCC) 619.
[7] Art. 21 do not place an absolute embargo on the deprivation of life or personal liberty and for
that matter on right to livelihood. What Art. 21 insists is that such deprivation ought to be
according to procedure established by law which must be fair, just and reasonable. Therefore
anyone who is deprived of the right to livelihood without a just and fair procedure established by
law can challenge such deprivation as being against Art. 21 and get it declared void.9

[8] Furthermore, meaning of the term “life” is also defined in Munn v. Illinois, Field, J. spoke of
the right to life in the following words: “By the term “life” as here used something more is
meant than mere animal existence. The inhibition against its deprivation extends to all those
limbs and faculties by which life is enjoyed. The provision equally prohibits the mutilation of the
body by the amputation of an arm or leg, or the putting out of an eye, or the destruction of any
other organ of the body through which the soul communicates with outer world.” This article
applies to even non-citizen of India. The Supreme Court has emphasized that even those who
come to India as tourists also – “have right to live, so long as they are here, with human dignity,
just as the State is under an obligation to protect the life of every citizen in this country, so also
the State is under an obligation to protect the life of the persons who are not citizen.10

[9] According to Article 23 of the UDHR, everyone has the right to work, to free choice of
employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
Also, Article 25 of the UDHR, rightly postulates that everyone has the right to a standard of
living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the
event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in
circumstances beyond his control.

[11] Henceforth, in the light of the aforementioned contentions it is firmly established that the
State of Zedellin has violated the Fundamental Right to livelihood to the people of Zedellin who
are detained in the detention centers, by not allowing them to earn money by working and
making use of their skills and faculties.

9
M.P. Jain, Indian Constitutional Law, Wadhwa, 5th Ed. (2003), p. 1315
10
Chairman, Railway Board v. Chandrima Das, AIR 2000 SC 988