The Constitution of India, more particularly Article-21, dealing with Right to life and personal liberty states that, 'No person shall be deprived of his life and personal liberty except in accordance with law'.
While interpreting the meaning and scope of Article-21 from time to time, the Supreme Court has enlarged the scope of definition and meaning of Right to life and of personal liberty, as has been referred to under the provision.
The Supreme Court in the matter of Francis Coralie Mullin v. The Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi and others (reported in AIR 1980 SC 746), has considered the question, as to whether the right to life is limited only to protection of limb or faculty or does it go further and embrace something more. The Court held that,
'The right to life includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely, the bare necessities 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. Every act which offends against or impairs human dignity would constitute deprivation of this right to live and it would have to be in accordance with the reasonable, fair and just procedure established by law, which stands the test of other fundamental rights. Now, obviously any form of torture or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment would be offensive to human dignity and constitute an inroad into this right to live and it would, on this view, be prohibited by Article-21, unless it is in accordance with procedure prescribed by law, but no law which authorises and no procedure which leads to such torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment can never stand the test of reasonableness and non arbitrariness : it would plainly be unconstitutional and void as being violative of Article- 14 and 21'.
There is implicit in Article-21, the right to protection against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, which is enunciated in Article-5 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and guaranteed by Article-7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This right to live which is comprehended within the broad connotation of the right to life can concedebly, with proper care and caution, be abridged according to procedure established by law and therefore when a person is lawfully imprisoned, this right to live is bound to suffer attenuation to which he is incapable of enjoyment, and reason of incarceration. However, such judiciously permissible abridgedment even in accordance with the procedure established by law, incase found to be inhuman or cruel, lowering the dignity of an individual, it clearly amounts to the deprivation of the fundamental right to live with human dignity and resultantly is violative of Article-21 of the Constitution of India.
In the recent past, a video of the health workers wearing a personal protection equipment are seen bringing dead bodies of Covid-19 patients in black sheets from a vehicle parked nearby and dropping one after another into the large pit, dug up with the help of earth mover, has surfaced in the social media and has created furore.
A man who posted the video firstly on Youtube, claimed it to have happened in Ballari, Karnataka and even the conversations of the health workers in Kannada language was recorded therein. The eyewitness claimed that, 8 dead bodies were dumped in that passion in a single pit. It went viral on social media drawing widespread contamination over the manner in which handled and people demanded stringent action.
The Deputy Commissioner of Ballari, having noticed the viral video, had nothing more at his dispensation than only condemning the incident, he has not awarded any compensation to the family of the victims, as against the inhuman and disrespectful handling of the bodies, while being lowered onto the ground by the field staff.
The Chief Minister of Karnataka too condemned the incident. However, the Chief Minister has not awarded any compensation to the family of the victims, as against the inhuman and disrespectful handling of the bodies, while being lowered onto the ground by the field staff.
At one end, the State Government is not handing over the dead bodies of Covid-19 victims to their families to perform the last rites, citing Standard Operating Procedure on disposal of dead bodies of Covid-19 victims. And, on the other end, the health workers are not being kind to the Covid-19 victims in performing the last rites of the deceased with honour, is inhuman.
The act of health workers, not only, is, against all the canons of civility, but also, it reflects the failure on the part of government in strict implementation of Standard Operating Procedure on disposal of dead bodies of Covid-19 victims.
To say the least, the video reflected most inhuman behaviour of the health workers in handling the dead bodies of Covid-19 victims and is painful, and, is violative of right to dignity, enshrined under Article-21 of the Constitution of India.
Conclusively, to do complete justice, the state government should seek an apology and pay the compensation to the families of the victims, as against the inhuman and disrespectful handling of the bodies.
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