PAPPA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is alleged in the applications that the petitioner, a widow having seven children, was arrested on 15th February, 1991 in connection with FIR No-59/81 under sections 20,61 and 85 of the NDPS Act.ln para 8 of the application, being Cr.M.2144/93, it is stated that the petitioner is in custody for the last more than two and a half years and her children are being neglected as there is no one to look after them. In the application it is prayed that the State should be directed to provide food, shelter and education to her children.

(2.) In a situation like this, where children of a single parent are left alone due to the incarceration of the parent, it is the bounden duty of the State to provide for such children, who have no one even to wipe their tears,respond to their smiles or to prevent them from taking to wayward life. These children cannot be forgotten and abandoned. If they are being deprived of the hands which feed, protect and love them, it will not be just, fair and reasonable to leave them without securing for them, the basic necessities of life including food, education and shelter. What will happen to the children who see a heartless world around them in which they are not wanted and they do not receive anything from the society except deprivation,should be the concern of the State.

(3.) When the only parent is tucked away in jail the State must rehabilitate the children. The State may be totally justified in fettering a person's liberty but at the same time the State must be mindful of the fact that be may have children with none to look after them except him. While punishing such a person by placing him in custody, the blow to the children must be softened. By depriving the parent of his liberty the State is also depriving the child of the means of his subsistence and sustenance. The State must in such circumstances replenish the said means by providing the bare necessities of life to the child. It is well settled that right to life under Article 20 of the Constitution means something more than survival or animal existence.Right to life is a whole some right which makes life meaningful and complete including life which is to be lived with dignity. In Francis Coralie Mullin vs. The Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi and others, AIR 1981 S.C. 746, the Supreme Court while applying Article 21 of the Constitution to a prisoner held that the right to life would include right to live with all that goes along with it including bare necessities of life. If prisoners have these rights surely their children can not be worse off than them.