NEW DELHI:
The Supreme Court on Friday, November 18, 2022, refused to entertain a plea to direct the Law Commission of India to prepare a report on population “explosion” and the feasibility of having a population control law.
A Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said the subject lay solely within the domain of the government and noted “there is a declining population”.
The court said there were several issues, including social ones, to consider and the court cannot get into it.
“There is a declining population and it will reach a stabilising point probably in 10 or 20 years… we cannot wipe out population,” the Bench observed orally to petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
Mr. Upadhyay said the country hosts 20% of the population and covers only 2.1% of the land. He withdrew the petition.
In its reply to the petition, the government had made it clear that it cannot coerce couples into having a “certain number of children” in a bid to curb population explosion.
In fact, the government also said that 2001-2011 had witnessed the sharpest decline in decadal growth rate among Indians in 100 years.
‘Couples to decide size of family’
“The Family Welfare Programme in India is voluntary in nature, which enables couples to decide the size of their family and adopt the family planning methods, best suited to them, according to their choice, without any compulsion,” the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had said in an affidavit.
It had said India was a signatory to the Programme Of Action (POA) of the International Conference on Population and Development, 1994, which was unequivocally against coercion in family planning.
“In fact, international experience shows that any coercion to have a certain number of children is counter-productive and leads to demographic distortions,” the Ministry had explained.
“Population explosion is more dangerous than bomb explosion and without implementing effective population control measures, Healthy India, Literate India, Prosperous India, Resourceful India, Strong India, Secured India, Sensitive India, Clean India and Corruption and Crime-Free India campaign won’t succeed,” Mr. Upadhyay had argued.
But the government had countered that India had been witnessing a “constant decline” in the total fertility rate (TFR).
It said according to the Census statistics “2001-2011 is the first decade in the last 100 years which has not only added lesser population as compared to the previous one, but also registered the sharpest decline in the decadal growth rate from 21.54% in 1991-2001 to 17.64% in 2001-2011”.
The Ministry said the TFR which was 3.2 at the time when National Population Policy 2000 was adopted has declined substantially to 2.2 as per Sample Registration System (SRS) of 2018. Eom
