Right to road part of right to life: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, May 12

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that right to a road up to the homestead of every citizen is a part of the right to life. A Division Bench of the High Court also made it clear that a gram panchayat is under an obligation to provide a “revenue rasta” (an access road that is documented in government revenue records) to even a solitary villager to completely subserve his constitutional right to life.

“The constitutional mandate of right to life also encapsulates the right to a road being constructed up to the homestead of any citizen for facilitating ambulance services being purveyed to a citizen requiring emergent medical aid,” the Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Kuldeep Tiwari asserted. Access roads are referred to as “revenue rasta” in the government records.

In its detailed order, the Bench asserted that the right to life was enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India and it encompassed the state’s duty to provide convenient access to even a singular homestead.

The Bench added this was to enable its inhabitant to avail facilities in case an emergent medical situation arose through the construction of an ambulance road and alleviating medical care, which could be provided at medical centres concerned.

Elaborating, the Bench also asserted that the construction of the revenue road was a solemn duty cast upon the gram panchayat to enable all villagers avail medical facilities. The panchayat lands were otherwise also imperatively meant for the common purposes of the village proprietary body. As such, these were meant to serve the purpose of providing a “revenue rasta”.

The Bench asserted that even if purportedly only a single individual benefitted from the construction of a “revenue rasta” at the instance of the collector of the revenue district concerned, it was not a “sufficient and well-informed reason” for the panchayat to resist the compliance of the order through a resolution.

In such a case, there would be a breach of the mandate of the right to life as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

The Bench was hearing a petition filed by a gram panchayat against Punjab Financial Commissioner and other respondents. It was seeking quashing of directions for constructing a “rasta” for an “unauthorised occupant of land owned and possessed by the gram panchayat”.

Dismissing the petition with Rs 50,000 costs, the Bench asserted it was completely frivolous petition and appeared to be generated by “maladies”. “As such, all expenses incurred in its institution before this court shall not be borne from funds of the gram panchayat concerned, but from the pockets of the sarpanch of the gram panchayat concerned”.