The Supreme Court of India should be hailed for upholding the rights of the underprivileged sections in two recent judgments. The first is upholding the right of free treatment in private hospitals which utilised the grant of subsidised or free land with an undertaking for free treatment of patients up to 25 per cent of bed capacity. Though the ruling is for the hospitals in New Delhi, hopefully it would apply to all hospitals which also tend to use public spaces in various forms, like utilising much of the road spaces where they are situated, as their own.
The second is the apex court's warning to employers against the exploitation of workers — under the ruse of growth through globalisation and liberalisation — by denying them their rightful claims, through the backdoor of misusing the concept of contractual labour. Such decisions are not judicial overreach.
Kasim Sait,Chennai
