been suffering for more than four decades as the
source of their livelihood has been arbitrarily
deprived by the appellant. Thereby, the Right to
Liberty and Livelihood guaranteed under Articles
19 and 21 of the Constitution of India have been
denied to the respondent by the appellant as
held in the case of Olga Tellis and Ors. v.
Bombay Municipal Corporation and Ors
(1985)3 SCC 545, wherein
this Court has held thus:
“32. As we have stated while summing up the
petitioners’ case, the main plank of their
argument is that the right to life which is
guaranteed by Article 21 includes the right
to livelihood and since, they will be
deprived of their livelihood if they are
evicted from their slum and pavement
dwellings, their eviction is tantamount to
deprivation of their life and is hence
unconstitutional. For purposes of argument,
we will assume the factual correctness of
the premise that if the petitioners are
evicted from their dwellings, they will be
deprived of their livelihood. Upon that
assumption, the question which we have to
consider is whether the right to life
includes the right to livelihood. We see
only one answer to that question, namely,
that it does. The sweep of the right to
life conferred by Article 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 the death sentence, except
according to procedure established by law.
That is but one aspect of the right to
life. An equally important facet of that
right is the right to livelihood because,
no person can live without the means of
living, that is, the means of livelihood.
If the right to livelihood is not treated
as a part of the constitutional right to
life, the easiest way of depriving a person
of his right to life would be to deprive
him of his means of livelihood to the point
of abrogation. Such deprivation would not
only denude the life of its effective
content and meaningfulness but it would
make life impossible to live. And yet, such
deprivation would not have to be in
accordance with the procedure established
by law, if the right to livelihood is not
regarded as a part of the right to life.
That, which alone makes it possible to
live, leave aside what makes life livable,
must be deemed to be an integral component
of the right to life. Deprive a person of
his right to livelihood and you shall have
deprived him of his life. Indeed, that
explains the massive migration of the rural
population to big cities. They migrate
because they have no means of livelihood in
the villages. The motive force which
propels their desertion of their hearths
and homes in the village is the struggle
for survival, that is, the struggle for
life. So unimpeachable is the evidence of
the nexus between life and the means of
livelihood. They have to eat to live: only
a handful can afford the luxury of living
to eat. That they can do, namely, eat, only
if they have the means of livelihood. That
is the context in which it was said by
Douglas, J. in Baksey that the right to
work is the most precious liberty that man
possesses. It is the most precious liberty
because, it sustains and enables a man to
live and the right to life is a precious
freedom. “Life”, as observed by Field, J.
in Munn v. Illinois means something more
than mere animal existence and the
inhibition against the deprivation of life
extends to all those limits and faculties
by which life is enjoyed. This observation
was quoted with approval by this Court in
Kharak Singh v. State of U.P.”
(emphasis laid down by this Court)
REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 2381 OF 2007
STATE OF U.P ………APPELLANT
Vs.
CHARAN SINGH ………RESPONDENT
Citation;(2015)8 SCC150
