Petition in SC:
- Petition sought the declaration of the ‘two-child norm’ as a mandatory criterion for government jobs, aids and subsidies and urged that the law dealing with the condition for recognition of a state or national party be suitably amended in this direction.
The plea lists the following appeals:
- The non-compliance of the norm should lead to the withdrawal of citizens statutory rights including the right to vote and contest elections.
- Declaring of first Sunday of every month as ‘health day’ to spread awareness against population explosion and providing contraceptive pills, condoms, vaccines to economically-weaker sections and families below poverty line.
- Setting 21 years as the minimum marriageable age for all citizens.
- Implementation of the 24th recommendation of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) which proposes to control the population by means of education and implementation of small family norms.
- The two-child norm for contesting local body elections has been adopted by states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Haryana has yielded very positive results in reducing the population growth in those states.
- People representatives are not only public servants but also lawmakers. Hence they should set an example for others for adopting two child norms so that common people of the country can be encouraged to emulate two-child norm.
- The appeal argues that even though India was the first country in the world to have a population policy, it has not achieved much in terms of population control due to the negligence of governments.