'Children Are The Wealth Of This Nation', Patna HC Issues Slew of Directions For Providing Immediate Relief To Children In Bihar [Read Judgment]

On 6th July 2020, the Patna High Court had taken suo moto cognizance of the plight of children in the District Bhagalpur, Bihar due to non-availability of mid-day meals following shutting of schools and Anganwadi centres amid the COVID-19 pandemic.The Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S. Kumar had taken cognizance of the matter based on a news report run by the Indian Express which pointed out that children had been forced to indulge into begging, garbage picking and scrap selling, due to non-availability of food.On Friday (18th September), the Court, after taking note of the unfortunate situation concerning the children in the State of Bihar, deliberated on the following issues:-A. Whether the State is fulfilling its statutory and constitutional mandate of providing food and nutritional security to children who have been adversely impacted by the closure of schools and Anganwadi centres due to the COVID-19?B. What measures can be undertaken to ensure that the right to education of children in the State is not adversely impacted during this time, and to prevent school children from indulging in begging and garbage collection?Child's Right To Food- In The Times Of PandemicThe Court was of the view that the Right to Food is an implication of the right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It encompasses the right to have regular, permanent, and unrestricted access to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food. This emanates from the right of every human being to live with dignity and freedom from hunger.The Judgment of the Apex Court in the cases of Francis Coralie Mullin v. UT of Delhi (1981) 1 SCC 608, Shantistar Builders v. Narayan Khimalal Totame (1990) 1 SCC 520 and Kapila Hingorani v. State of Bihar, (2003) 6 SCC 1 were taken into account by the High Court to conclude that, although the right to food does not feature directly as a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution of India, but various pronouncements of the Top Court have read the right to food into Article 21 of the Constitution.Accordingly, the Court held that it is the legal and moral obligation of the State, under the constitutional provision and international treaty obligations to ensure that the children and their families are provided with means to feed themselves so as to not, owing to their substandard conditions, be forced into activities like beggary and rag-picking.Child's right to education- in the times of pandemicThe Court was of the view that the importance of education is highlighted by the fact that the Right to Education is enshrined as a fundamental right under Article 21A of the Constitution of India as well as Directive Principles of State Policy under Articles 41 and 45 of the Constitution of India.Right to education is also recognized as a statutory right under the provisions of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.In the State of Bihar, as observed by the Court, more than 1.19 Crore children cannot attend school on account of Covid-19. To keep them engaged, as the learned Advocate General informed the Court, the State has come out with programmes of imparting teaching through the platform of television.However, the Court was concerned about the feasibility of these programmes and questioned the state as to whether the Children are able to avail the benefit of such programmes.The Court acknowledged the fact that State has a responsibility to prioritize its efforts in building capacity to support the system and citizens that are Below Poverty Line (BPL) and lift them above the poverty threshold.In the context of children, the Court's reference to BPL was not in purely economic terms, rather the idea of a life of deprivation which exists below a certain accepted level of wellbeing.Further, the Court observed that,"For a child, BPL has to be something more than meeting a nutritional threshold and be extended to include capacity building towards holistic development, which includes nutritional, educational and psychological needs of the child. Unless the State can empower these children to think independently and choose their path in life, it would be a significant failure of our developing society."The amicus curiae averred before the Court that the economic hardship imposed by the ongoing pandemic is putting millions of children at risk of being forced into child labour, which could lead to the first global rise in child labour after 20 years of progress.To this, the Court remarked,"Rag-picking is one of the worst forms of child labour plaguing our society. This deplorable activity exposes young children to a host of health and psychological issues. It increases the children's susceptibility to frequent injuries, chemical poisoning and infections, which when coupled with malnutrition, leads to disease, and stunted growth."Further, the Court noted,"Despite the fact that India has passed a number of constitutional...

'Children Are The Wealth Of This Nation', Patna HC Issues Slew of Directions For Providing Immediate Relief To Children In Bihar [Read Judgment]

Sparsh Upadhyay

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