Urbanisation and the Pavement Dweller

In one line

The right to livelihood is part of the right to life, and the pavement dwellers still had to move.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: urbanisation is the movement of population from the countryside to the town, and it is the social consequence of industrialisation. Its legal problems are three: the right of the person who arrives to be there at all; the procedure that must precede an eviction; and the machinery by which a city is governed. In Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation a Bench of five held that the right to LIVELIHOOD is an integral facet of the right to life under article 21, because no person can live without the means of living, so that a person cannot be deprived of it except by a procedure that is just, fair and reasonable; and it nevertheless upheld the removal of the pavement dwellers, holding that section 314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, permitting removal without notice, was not unreasonable in itself, while requiring that notice be given and that alternative sites be provided to those censused. In Chameli Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh the Court held the right to SHELTER to be part of articles 21 and 19(1)(e). The Seventy-fourth Amendment 1992 inserted Part IXA, articles 243P to 243ZG, constituting municipalities.

Olga Tellis

Facts. Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1985) 3 SCC 545, decided 10 July 1985 by a Bench of five under Chandrachud CJ. The Bombay Municipal Corporation resolved to evict pavement and slum dwellers from the city and to deport them to their places of origin. Section 314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act 1888 permitted the Commissioner to remove an encroachment WITHOUT NOTICE. The petitioners were pavement dwellers and journalists, and their case was that eviction would deprive them of their livelihood, because they lived where they worked.

Held, on the right. That the right to life under article 21 is wide, and that an equally important facet of it is the RIGHT TO LIVELIHOOD, because no person can live without the means of living. If the right to livelihood is not treated as part of the right to life, the easiest way of depriving a person of the right to life would be to deprive him of his means of livelihood. Article 39(a) and article 41 support the construction. So a person may not be deprived of his livelihood except according to a PROCEDURE ESTABLISHED BY LAW that is just, fair and reasonable.

Held, on the section. That section 314 is not unreasonable in the circumstances of the case. It is a power that MAY be exercised without notice, not a duty to act without notice, and it must be exercised reasonably, so that ordinarily notice must be given and the affected person heard, though in an emergency the Commissioner may act at once.