Pandemic and Lockdown: Impact on Human Life with Special Reference to Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy of Indian Constitution

  • Tanvi Goyal
  • Show Author Details
  • Tanvi Goyal

    Assistant professor at MVP Law School, Nashik, India

  • img Download Full Paper

Abstract

The Corona Virus Disease or Covid-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus and is spread through discharged droplets of saliva when a person sneezes or coughs. In pursuance of curbing the spread of the disease, India, along with other nations, declared a nationwide lockdown in March 2020 to ensure people quarantine themselves and reduce the rate of spread of the disease. The central Government took this measure under the National Disaster Management Act, 2006. While it helped reduce physical contact amongst people, it led to a curb in the movement of people and the right to dignity, thus impeding into the domain of fundamental rights provided under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Since all the activities have come to a standstill, the pandemic led to economic deterioration in an economy, especially shedding light on the deplorable condition of the migrant laborers of our nation. The measures taken by the Government seem to impede the revered fundamental rights of the citizens of the country, bringing into question Part III of the Constitution as well as Part IV with respect to the role of directive principle of state policy and the influence they have on the State when they attempt to deal with such emergencies. The executive and judiciary have been put in a dichotomous situation wherein, on the one hand, the executive is making laws in order to provide relief to the situation created by the virus. On the other hand, the judiciary is making efforts to ensure that the State does not curtail the fundamental rights of the citizens. The paper attempts to understand how the pandemic has influenced the decision-making power of the Government, to what extent they have taken the help of directive policies, and how far they are justified in impeding a citizen's rights. It further highlights the legal recourse available to citizens to ensure their rights are upheld.

Type

Research Paper

Information

International Journal of Law Management and Humanities, Volume 5, Issue 1, Page 469 - 482

DOI: https://doij.org/10.10000/IJLMH.112490

Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting, and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © IJLMH 2021