Democracy and Spiritual Guru!!!

"I say ninety per cent of Indians are idiots." Mr Katju, burped these words of wisdom. Though, He did not reject his being in 90%. I was restless to know that from where Mr. Katju got his wisdom of 90%. 'If there is a will, there is a way' A book viz.  'Don't Kill Him! The Story of My Life with Bhagwan Rajnish - Maa Anand Sheela has paved a way for me. After reading the book I have reason to believe that Mr Katju might be influenced by OSHO. A paragraph from the book would suffice the purpose. 

"... this is something you have to understand precisely. Democracy does not work. It only gives power to those who stand at the lowest. This degrades quality of life. A democracy is determined by the masses. The masses are mediocre. Their decision is not intelligent. Only ten percent of the people on earth are intelligent. The administrative powers must be given to the person who is qualified to do it. Decisions have to be made by people who are suited for the role and understand complexities. Don't listen to those people who only want to make complaints. They don't understand my work. They don't understand me. They are not intelligent...."

It is well known fact that Mr Katju's  judgments starts with cuplets of great poets of India. The fact that he is influenced and adored OSHO is a discovery for me.  Osho's view on Democracy also appalled me! Osho did not want mediocrity in his commune. He believed that democracy brings mediocrity.

Democracy is not the highest goal. It is better than dictatorial regimes, it is better than monarchies, but it is not the end of the journey – because democracy basically means government by the people, of the people, for the people, but the people are retarded. So let us say: government by the retarded, for the retarded, of the retarded.

Mr Kaju said the same thing, ' You people don't have brains in your heads ...'. He further Said, "You mad people will start fighting amongst yourself not realising that some agent provocateur is behind this,"

Both the intelligent men lack the propriety to comment on such issue. Both have flawed views and that prove them right that 90% of Indians are idiot!

Moral of the Story: "You people don't have brains in your heads....It is so easy to take you for a ride." - Mr Katju.

English - Gujlish of Gandhi and English - Bengalism of Tagore.

In the month of April 1921, Mahatma Gandhi launched a broadside against English Education. First, in a speech in Orissa, he described it as an ‘unmitigated evil’. Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Rammohan Roy would, said Gandhi, have ‘been far greater men had they not the contagion of English learning’. In Gandhi’s opinion, these two influential and admired Indians ‘were so many pigmies who had no hold upon the people compared with Chaitanya, Sanker, Kabir, and Nanak’. Warming to the theme, Gandhi insisted that ‘what sanker alone was able to do, the whole army of English- knowing men can’t do. I can multiply instances. Was Guru Govind a product of English education? Is there a single English-knowing Indian who is a match for Nanak, the founder of a sect second to none in point of valour and sacrifice? … If the race has even to be revived it is to be revived not by English education.’

A friend, reading the press reports of this talk in Orissa, asked Gandhi to explain his views further. Writing in his own newspaper, the Mahatma clarified that ‘it is my considered opinion that English education in the manner it has been given has emasculated the English- educated Indian, it has put a severe strain on the Indian students’ nervous energy, and has made of us imitators. The process of displacing the vernaculars has been one of the saddest chapters in the British Connection…’ ‘Rammohan Roy would have been a greater reformer,’ claimed the Mahatma, ‘and Lokmanya Tilak would have been a greater scholar, if they had not to start with the handicap of having to think in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English.’ Gandhi argued that ‘of all the superstitions that affect India, none is so great as that a knowledge of the English language is necessary for imbibing ideas of liberty, and developing accuracy of thought’. As a result of the system of education introduced by the English, ‘the tendency has been to dwarf the Indian body, mind and soul’. 

One does not know whether the Mahatma’s anonymous friend was content with this clarification. But someone who was less than satisfied with Gandhi’s view was the poet Rabindranath Tagore. He was then travelling in Europe, where he received, by post, copies of Gandhi’s articles. Tagore was dismayed by their general tenor, and by the chastisement of Rammohan Roy in particular. On the 10^th of May 1921, he wrote to their common friend C.F. Andrews, saying, ‘I strongly protest against Mahatma Gandhi’s depreciation of such great personalities of Modern India as Rammohan Roy in his zeal for declaiming against our modern education.’ Gandhi had celebrated the example of Nanak and Kabir, but, as Tagore suggested, those saints ‘were great because in their life and teaching they made organic union of the Hindu and Muhammadan cultures – and such realization of the spiritual unity through all differences of appearances is truly Indian.’ 

In learning and appreciating English, argued Tagore, Rammohan Roy had merely carried on the good work of Nanak and Kabir. Thus, ‘in the modern age Rammohan Roy had that comprehensiveness of mind to be able to realize the fundamental unity of spirit in the Hindu, Muhammadan and Christian cultures. Therefore, he represented India in the fullness of truth, and this truth is based, not upon rejection, but on perfect comprehension.’ Tagore pointed out that ‘Rammohan Roy could be perfectly natural in his acceptance of the west, not only because his education had been perfectly Eastern – he had the full inheritance of the Indian wisdom. He was never a school boy of the west. If he is not understood by modern India, this only shows the pure light of her own truth has been obscured for the moment by the storm—clouds of passion.’ 

Tagore’s letter to Andrews was released to the press, and read by Gandhi. His answer was to say that he did ‘not object to English learning as such’, but merely to its being made a fetish, and to its being preferred as a medium of education to the mother tongue. ‘Mine is not a religion of the prison – house,’ he insisted: ‘it has room even for the least among God’s creation.’ Refuting the charge that he or his non – cooperation movement were a manifestation of xenophobia, he said: ‘I hope I am a great a believer in free air as the great poet. I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off by any.’

These words are emblazoned in halls and auditoria across India, but always without the crucial first line: ‘I hope I am as great a believer in free air as the great poet.’ In truth, despite this argument in theory, in practice Gandhi and Tagore were more or less on the same side. Gandhi wrote his books in Gujarati, but made certain that they were translated into English so as to reach a wider audience. And when required he could use the conqueror’s language rather well himself. His first published articles, that appeared in the journal of the Vegetarian Society of London in 1891, were written in the direct and unadorned prose that was the hallmark of all his work in English, whether petitions to the colonial government, editorials in his journals Indian Opinion, Young India and Harijan, or numerous letters to friends.

In writing in more than one language, Gandhi was in fact merely following in the footsteps of those he had criticized. For, Bal Gangadgar Tilak’s mother tongue was Marathi, a language in which he did certainly publish essays. On his part, Rammohan Roy had published books in Persian and essays in Bengali before he came to write in English (he was also fluent in Sanskrit and Arabic). As for Tagore, this man who shaped and reshaped the Bengali language through his novels and poems, made sure that his most important works of non-fiction were available in English. His major political testament, Nationalism, was based on lectures he wrote and delivered in English. His important and still relevant essays on relations between the East and the West were either written in English or translated by a colleague under his supervision. Tagore understood that while love and humiliation at the personal or familiar level were best expressed in the mother tongue, impersonal questions of reason and justice had sometimes to be communicated in a language read by more people and over a greater geographical space than Bengali.

By writing in English as well as their mother tongue, Gandhi and Tagore were serving society as well as themselves. They reached out to varied audiences – and, by listening to other people’s views, broadened the bases of their own thought. This open – mindedness was also reflected in their reading. Thus Gandhi read (and was influenced by) thinkers who were not necessarily Gujarati. The debt he owed to Ruskin and Tolstoy was scarcely less than that owed to Raychandbhai or Narsinh Mehta. Gandhi was also enriched by the time he spent outside Gujarat—the several years in England, the several decades in South Africa, the millions of miles travelling through the country side.   

On his part, Tagore was widely read in European literature. When he visited Germany in the 1920s at the invitation of his publisher, Kurt Wolff, his host remembered the ‘universal breadth of Tagore’s learning’, their conversations revealing ‘without doubt that he knew far more of the West of the Europeans he encountered knew of the East’. Tagore had spoken, among other things, of the works of T. S. Eliot. ‘It is quite remarkable’, said Wolff, ‘that someone born in India in 1861 should display such an interest in and grasp of an Anglo – American poet thirty years his junior.’  

Moral of the Story:  ‘I hope I am a great a believer in free air as the great poet. I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off by any.’ 

(From 'The Rise and Fall of The Bilingual Intellectual' Part - II of Ramchandra Guha's Aritcle)

The FARCE of 'Rarest of Rare'

In India, we face discrimination at every stage of Life. Unfortunately, our death also attracts discrimination. Whenever, any mishap claimed lives of our citizens the state government gives compensation to show their compassion. In this compassion the life is being valued differently for different mishap. e.g. 'Amanat'/'Nirbhaya' the Delhi's Braveheart's life value is 35L INR whereas the deceased of Kumbhmela stampede’s value of life is 5L INR. There are more than lakhs of cases of rape and thousands of rape victims are murdered by the accused. The state government does not provide compensation to every victim. Does it not discrimination? There is no clear method for providing such compensation money to victim/deceased/survival. 

The Acid attack victim is breathing her fate everyday and asked the Supreme Court to grant euthanasia as she doesn’t want to live her life with her disfigured face. She couldn’t afford medical treatment as it costs more than 20L INR. It is the same state government who gives Amanat 20L INR doesn’t want to support this acid attack survivor. 

"Such extraordinary grounds alone constitutionally qualify as special reasons as leave no option to the court but to execute the offender if State and society are to survive. One stroke of murder hardly qualifies for this drastic requirement, however gruesome the killing or pathetic the situation, unless the inherent testimony oozing from that act is irresistible that the murderous appetite of the convict is too chronic and deadly that ordered life in a given locality or society or in prison itself would be gone if this man were now or later to be at large. If he is an irredeemable murderer, like a bloodthirsty tiger, be has to emit his terrestrial tenancy."

Afzal Guru is now no more! He was hanged to death. He has committed a crime which is 'Rarest of Rare'. This 'Rarest of Rare' is the biggest anomaly in Indian sentencing jurisprudence. The court must satisfy its conscience while granting death penalty to any convict that the crime which has been committed by the convict is 'Rarest of Rare' case. But, what is 'Rarest of Rare'? How do Indian Courts define the term 'Rarest of Rare'? These questiones haven't been answered well. It is the Bachan Singh case where the term 'Rarest of Rare' cropped in our sentencing jurisprudence.

The Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent. 

The law demands clear and defined word. Otherwise, vague and ambiguous word will be proven fatal sometime. The word 'Rarest of Rare' has not been defined anywhere in India so, it creates confusion. This confusion leads conflicting judgments. Whenever the word has two or more than two meaning then the court has discretion to choose whatever meaning is suitable for the particular case. 

In the case of OMA Omprakash and Anr. V. State of Tamilnadu (Criminal Appeal No: 143 of 2007) Supreme court was shocked to know that the convict has been awarded death Penalty for the Dacoity and Murder. The Court was stunned after reading the reasoning given by session court to grant death penalty for such crime. The session court observed;

“In this case, the accused came from a state about 2000 k.m. from our state and they did not think that the victims were also human like them but they thought only about the well being of their family and their own life and committed the fear of death amongst the common public of our state by committing robbery and murder for about 11 years. Therefore, this court is of the opinion that the death sentence that would be imposed on them would create a fear amongst the criminals who commit such crime and further this case is a rarest of rare case that calls for the imposition of death sentence.”

Some of the Special Reasons given by Session Court reads as follow:

In this case, it has been decided by this court to impose the maximum sentence of death to be imposed on the accused No. 1 and 2, under Section 396 of the Indian Penal Code, under Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, the special reasons for awarding such sentence to be given show that the case is a case of rarest of rare cases. Therefore, this court gives the following reasons:

B.) Before the enactment of Criminal Procedure Code, many years ago, civilization has come into existence. From the rule of Kingdom to the rule of people and the democracy and constitution came into existence in many countries. In these circumstances, the death sentence is prevailing in all the countries in different from and that sentence is imposed on such criminal who deserves for the same. We all know that more particularly in the court in like America, the sentence like ‘lynching’ has attained the legal form and given to the deserving criminals and in Arab countries the law provide for imposing sentence like ‘slashing’, ‘beheading’ taking the organ for organ like ‘eye for eye’, ‘tooth for tooth’. The above mentioned facts are the development of criminal jurisprudence. Therefore, this court is of the opinion that it is proper to impose death sentence to the accused in this case.

F.) The honorable Chief Justice of High Court of Madras, Justice A. P. Shah while delivering a lecture at Madurai said strict laws should be enacted as regard to Child abuse and the persons committing the crime should be punished accordingly. This advise was taken note of the honorable Justice Karpagavinayagm while delivering a judgment on rowdy panchayat system. He ordered that the government should enact suitable law to eliminate this menace. Taking this judgment into consideration and that there is a provision in Section 396 of the Indian Penal Code that the people involved in dacoity can be imposed with death sentence, the accused who have committed the murder without any pity deserve to be imposed with the death sentence. This court is also of the opinion that the imposition of death sentence under Section 396 of the Indian Penal Code is the only weapon in the hands of the judiciary under the prevailing law to help to eliminate the crime.

Above mentioned case provides great insights about how the Judges can misinterpret 'Rarest of Rare'. I am of the opinion that the word must be defined and provide the clear conditions/grounds/crimes in which the test of rarest of rare should apply. There are many cases where convicts committed similar crime gets different punishment. The death penalty is irreversible. This facts give us a reason why should we have an uniform definition for 'Rarest of Rare'.

Moral of the Story: Death doesn't eradicate DISCRIMINATION!!!

 

Right to Potable Water and India! - By Khushi M Pandya

As per the current situation of the Nation, Right to potable water should fall within the category of the Fundamental Rights of Individuals but it has not been specifically or namely categorized in it. In simple words, Potable water is water which is free of pathogens and contains no harmful chemicals and has desirable taste, odor, color and turbidity. It is popular and also known as a ‘sweet water’ or ‘drinking water’ amongst general public of the nation. In India, water is a limited national resource with demands on it increasing on account of a growing population of over one billion. There is a shortage of water in all over India especially for drinking purpose and also for the purpose of the farming, industrial purpose and many more. According to, World Water Development Report, 2003 in the matter  of  availability of water, India is at the 133rd position among 180 countries and as regards the quality of the water available, it is 120th among 122 countries. Of the present water usage in India, 92 per cent is devoted to agriculture; around 3 per cent is used by industries and only 5 percent for domestic purposes like drinking water and sanitation.[1] Water pollution is a serious problem with 70 per cent of India’s surface water resources and an increasing number of its ground water reserves standing contaminated by biological, toxic organic and in organic pollutants.[2]

In the present time, there is unavailability of water for the industrial and agriculture purpose and for drinking purpose because of pollution and inappropriate distribution of water among the territory. In some areas, there are problems regarding the resources for drinking water. For that, Sharing and distribution of the water, requires a regulatory agenda which should include laws and implementation of that laws in real sense, for that, support of NGOs & local authorities and public, traditional & customary practices and saving of rain water.

This post contributes right of water- potable water, overview of Constitutional Provisions and various decisions of Judiciary on Potable water as a fundamental right, Sources of Potable Water in India and its impurity, Right to potable Water as a Human Right, An unfulfilled obligation on the part of Government, Right to Potable Water- rhetoric and Recommendations and Conclusion.

Following heads help us to understand the Potable Water as a Right.

• Meaning of Potable Water-

As mentioned above, potable water must-

-          be free from pathogens (disease causing organisms)

-          have a desirable taste, odor, color and turbidity and

-          Contain no harmful chemicals.

A potable water supply is one which is drinkable. Natural water from a river, lake or borehole usually has to treat to make it potable.

The water cycle of the biosphere depends upon the reciprocity of evaporation and precipitation. Liquid water on the earth goes into the atmosphere as vapours by evaporation and transpiration of the plants. The vapour is returned to the Earth as rain or snow. In simple terms, water cycle is evaporation of water from ocean, sea, river, pond & etc., formation of cloud, condensation into rain or snow, flowing back to ocean, sea, river, pond & etc., depends on various conditions like temperature, density or air, pressure of air, which inturn depends if situation like forest or plant cover on earth’s surface etc. this is an amazing process of nature to convert saline water into sweet water.[3]

• Water- an important substance for human body-

Water is the sustenance of the life cycle of human being. The human body and other organisms require water in its purest form, free from any contamination. For the purpose of drinking, water should be sweet water. There is about 65% part of water into human body for the purpose of lubrication, respiration, circulation, digation, filtration, air-condition and reduction.

Contaminated water cause malaria, jaundice, typhoid, cholera, diarrhea and dysentery. These are categorized as water-bone diseases. The water related diseases are claiming the lives of about 1.5 million children (500,000 children due to diarrhea alone) under 5 years and person-days lost in India are estimated to be about 180-200 million a year (Krishna Kumar, 2003; Parikh et al, 1999).[4]

• Sources of Potable Water- its impurity and causes for impuration-

The source of water that we get for our consumption are mainly from rain, river, ponds and lakes besides from groundwater source but largest water bodies that is seas and ocean gives salty water which is unfit for drinking purpose.

The main resource of drinking water is river. If water at source is impure, it is natural that we got polluted water thus causing problems for our survival. A staggering 70% of available water in India is polluted.[5]  Water sources are polluted due to various  industrial and domestic activities, pollutant from industries comes out in concentrated from mainly because most of the industries do not treat their effluents despite of various act. The threat of pollution from chemical fertilizers & pesticides appear to be relatively small but rising.

Domestic pollutants comes through municipal sewerage and these effluents are not treated due to various reasons, in some case due to non availability of sewerage plant, some case the plants do not run at all.

With the advent of enormous industrialization, population growth and scientific development in various walks of life, the ecosystem has been disturbed and damaged beyond repair. The balance between the mobile living (man, animals, birds, insects etc.), the immobile living (trees, plants) and three sustenance system (soil, water and air) has been disturbed. As Water is an important substance for life, in ecosystem as well as in biosystem, mobile living and immobile living cannot live, exist without water.

Above mentioned all are creating pollution of water in some or other manner. Polluted water is no more useful for the drinking purpose.

• Purity of water- its history-

In India, the purity of water has always been emphasized from time immemorial. In the Rig-Veda, the Atharva-Veda and the Yajur-Veda we find many verses in praise of Lord Varuna (God of Water). In the Yajur Veda water was regarded as a source of life and grain.[6] Bhagvad Geeta also mentions about worshipping of Lord Varuna.[7] This shows that in Vedic times, water was regarded as a component of life and thus was regarded as sacred, not to be polluted. In Manusmriti, the first systematic treatise on various laws, water is regarded as a creator and source of life on the earth.[8] To take away water of a tank or cut off the supply of water was an offence punishable with fine.[9] This proves that in olden times it was the duty of all to keep water pure, and pollution or destruction of water was recognized as an offence.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS AND RIGHT TO POTABLE WATER

Indian constitution emphasis on the protection of Environment. In Several Articles of the Indian Constitution, protection of water as well as protection of environment as whole is mentioned. Those articles directly or indirectly talks about the well being of the person with all necessities.

In India, the Right to Potable Water is not expressly stated in the Constitution. However, the right is implicit, in that Indian Courts have interpreted the Constitutional Right to Life as including the Right to clean & sufficient water.

Art.15(2)- this article of the constitution prohibits subjection of a citizen to any disability, liability, restriction or condition on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth with regard to use the of wells, tanks, bathing ghats..[10] This article of the Constitution is important because in our country there is discrimination on the grounds of the race, caste, sex and place of birth. Such feeling of the discrimination leads people to such sincere experience which prohibits another to enjoy his life. Most of the victims of such discrimination are of the SCs, STs and Vicharati and vimukt thati jati.

Art.21- Article 21 which speaks of the right to life[11] has been freely interpreted by the Supreme Court of India and High Courts of States to include all facets of life. It means that Art.21 includes right to potable water fall within it and it is a fundamental right of an individual as it is necessary for the survival of a person. In F.K. Hussain v. Union of India[12], the Kerala High Court declared that one of the attributes of right to life is right to potable water as it is one of the basic elements which sustain life itself. The Court also declared that administrative agencies could not be permitted to function in such a way to make inroads into fundamental rights under Art.21 of the Constitution.

Art.39(b)-mandates that ‘the State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to sub serve the common good.

   

Above discussed all are the Articles which directly indicate the State to perform some or other task for the protection. Article 51 of the constitution discuss about the Fundamental Duties on the part of Citizens of the Nation.

Art.51A (g)[13]- this article confers fundamental duty on each and every citizen of the India, ‘to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, wild life and to have compassion for living creatures.’ This article generously states that to protect the environment is our fundamental duty.

In the constitution, the primary entry relating to water is Entry 17 (the state list) of List II in Schedule 7.This means that states have control over water supplies, irrigation and canals, drainage and embankment, water storage, and hydroelectric power. The power of states is limited only by Entry 56 of List 1 (the union list), which gives the central government powers to regulate and deal with inter-state rivers and river valleys to the extent declared by the Parliament by law to be expedient in the public interest, and by entry 57 of the same list, which gives the centre the sole power to regulate fishing and fisheries beyond territorial waters

There are also examples in which right is placed in the Constitution i.e. South Africa and Uganda, others that have included provisions in their National Constitutions defining water as a public good and legislating for fair and equitable access (Ethiopia, Gambia). A specific law have been enacted in US – Safe Drinking water Act, 1974.

INDIAN JUDICIARY ON RIGHT TO POTABLE WATER

In India, the Judiciary is one of the three basic organs of the state and has a vital role in the functioning of the state. The Indian Judiciary has played dynamic role for the protection of all rights-economic, political, social and cultural.

By the below mentioned all case laws, Judiciary recognizes the Right to Potable water and need for the state to preserve and protect the right as the state is the trustee of all natural resources which are by nature meant for public use and enjoyment.[14]

In F.K.Hussain v. U.O.I[15]., the Kerala High Court declared that one of the attributes of right to life is right to potable water as it is one of the basic elements which sustain life itself. The Court also declared that administrative agencies could not be permitted to function in such a way to make inroads into fundamental rights under Art.21 of the Constitution. Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, in the Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar(1991), held that the right to live includes the right of enjoyment of pollution free water and air for full enjoyment of life.

In B.L. Vadhera v. U.O.I[16]. And in Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action v. U.O.I.[17] , the Hon’ble Court held that pollution free water includes within the purview of Right to Life guaranteed under Art.21 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in M.C.Mehta v. Kamal Nath[18], categorically held that the state is not only bound to regulate water supply, but should also help realize the right to healthy water & prevent health hazard. In Karnataka v. State of A.P.(2000), the Court held that the right to water is a right to water is a right to life & thus a Fundamental Right.

In Narmada Bachao Abhiyan v. U.O.I[19]., it was held that water is a basic need for the survival of human beings and is part of the right to life and human rights. The entitlement of citizens to receive safe drinking water (potable water) is part of the Right to Life under Art. 21. (Sinha, 2001: 48-49)

Above mentioned all decisions directly indicate that there should be a Right to Potable Water and they have stated that this right falls within the category of the Art.21- Right to life. But it is necessary to mention here that the decisions of Hon’ble Court does not bring safe drinking water to all the citizens of India specially who are deprived of it and it does not recommended as Constitutional Right.

---

[1] ‘Troubled Waters: Developing Water, Sustaining Livelihoods’, - A report made by development alternatives

[2]  ‘Troubled Waters: Developing Water, Sustaining Livelihoods’,

[3] Paryavaran Mitra-Edition Nov-Dec 2008 – a magazine on environment publishing in Gujarat in Gujarati Language

[4] Right to Drinking Water in India-C. Ramachandraiah- CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC AND  SOCIAL STUDIES, Hyderabad

[5] according to scientists at the National environmental Engineering & Research Instituue.

[6] Yajur Veda, IX, 6 & 7

[7] Bhagvad Geeta, 10/29

[8] Manusmriti, 1:78

[9] Manusmriti, IX: 281, 274

[10] Article 15(2) of the Indian Constitution prohibits subjection of a citizen to any disability, liability, restriction or condition on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth with regard to- (a) access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of entertainment, or, (b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of state funds or dedicated to the use of general public.

[11] Article 21- Protection of Life and Personal Liberty- No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.

[12] AIR 1990 Ker 321

[13] Art-51A(g)- it shall be the duty of every citizen of India- (g)- to protect and improve the natural environment including forest, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures.

[14] The Right To Water- An Overview Of The Indian Legal Regime by S. Murlidhar – International Environmental Law Research Centre

[15] AIR 1990 Ker 321

[16] AIR 1996 SC 2969: (1996) 2 SCC 594

[17] AIR 1996 SC 1446, para. 55, 56

[18] (1997) 1 SCC 388

[19] AIR 2000 SC 3751: (2000) 10 SCC 664