New Delhi: As many as 71 members of the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) – of retired civil servants and diplomats, the likes of G. Balachandhran, Vappala Balachandran, Harsh Mander, Shivshankar Menon and others – have issued an open letter to Supreme Court Justice B.R. Gavai, condemning his recent remarks during a hearing that stirred a controversy.
On February 12, 2025, a Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices B.R. Gavai and A.G. Masih was hearing a petition by E.R. Kumar regarding shelter homes for the homeless. Making his observations, Justice Gavai said that “freebies” were creating “a class of parasites” and disincentivising people from working by giving free ration and money. He said this while comparing “freebies” to welfare schemes.
“Rather than promoting them to be part of the mainstream society by contributing to the development of the nation, are we not creating a class of parasites,” Justice Gavai said. He also said that “…because of freebies, which (are announced) just on the anvil of elections. Some Ladki Bahin, some other schemes, the people are not willing to work. They are getting a free ration; they are getting an amount without doing any work.”
The remarks have been criticised by several sections of the society as being unjust and anti-poor.
Also read: Freebie Charge Is an Assault on Social Welfare and Rights of Citizens
Expressing distress, the CCG wrote, “These are people who have been pushed into destitution because the state has failed in its duties (elaborated in the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution) to secure a life with dignity for every citizen.”
“It is erroneous to hold that the petitions before the Supreme Court are an attempt to secure “freebies” for a lot of idle and lazy people,” the letter added.
Earlier, The Wire had reported that more than 300 activists, lawyers, journalists and organisations working with the homeless and the marginalised people came together to issue a press statement and said that the remarks “reflect an anti-poor bias in the judiciary”.
Former Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat, in a separate letter, also pointed out that the schemes cited by the judge were regarding cash benefits to women, the unpaid work contribution of whom, is among the highest in the world.
Read the full letter by the CCG:
20 February 2025
To
Justice B.R. Gavai
Supreme Court of India
Tilak Marg
New Delhi – 110001
Honourable Justice Gavai,
As a group of retired civil servants and diplomats who are deeply committed to upholding Constitutional conduct by all citizens, but particularly by Constitutional authorities, we are greatly distressed to learn of the remarks expressed by you on 12 February 2025 while hearing the civil writ petitions pertaining to provision of adequate shelter facilities to homeless persons.
As reported by the legal news portal Live Law(and confirmed by the legal counsel present during the hearing), you declared, “Sorry to say, but by not making these people part of mainstream society, are we not creating a class of parasites? Because of freebies, when elections are declared…people are not willing to work. They are getting free rations without doing any work! Would it not be better to make them part of mainstream society so that they can contribute to the nation?”
It is, we wish to urge, utterly unjust to stigmatise homeless people as “parasites” in the quest for “freebies”. This they, emphatically, are not. These are people who have been pushed into destitution because the state has failed in its duties (elaborated in the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution) to secure a life with dignity for every citizen. These duties include affordable housing, decent work, protection from domestic and sexual violence, social security, food and nutrition, health care and, additionally for children, the right to education in safe and happy conditions. These homeless women and men in cities are the most unprotected among the teeming army of informal workers. They are compelled each day to offer their labour to anyone who is willing to hire them. They do hard labour at shamefully low wages.
It is erroneous to hold that the petitions before the Supreme Court are an attempt to secure “freebies” for a lot of idle and lazy people. By “freebies” we understand illegitimate claims on the state exchequer. It is strange that the massive write-off of loans and tax holidays to large corporate houses, or indeed the one lakh crore rupee exemption from paying income tax for people in the top income decile of the country are not considered “freebies”, whereas public expenditure on housing, social security, work protection and health care of the most dispossessed of our citizens is readily put into that category.
In the past, the Supreme Court has, on occasion, displayed salutary moral and Constitutional clarity on this very question, by recognising that the effort in the petitions before the Supreme Court is to hold the state accountable to protect the fundamental right of a life with dignity to every homeless person. This was clearly articulated by the Supreme Court itself in the landmark judgement in writ petition 196 of 2001 PUCL versus the Union of India (popularly known as the Right to Food case). The Commissioners of the Supreme Court in that case approached the Supreme Court after reports poured in of many able-bodied homeless people dying in the winter cold of 2010-11.
Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Dipak Gupta in response passed a series of rulings that are now recognised as trailblazing, globally. They observed in January 2012, “Nothing is more important for the State than to preserve and protect the lives of the most vulnerable, weak, poor and helpless people. The homeless people are constantly exposed to the risk of life while living on the pavements and the streets and the threat to life is particularly imminent in the severe and biting cold winter, especially in northern India”. They ruled that “The State must discharge its core obligation to comply with Article 21 of the Constitution by providing night shelters for the vulnerable and homeless people”.
As the outcome of these rulings, more than 2000 homeless shelters were raised around the country. However, in the large majority of cases, the shelters are crowded, unsanitary and undignified. In the run-up to the G20 summit, nine homeless shelters on the banks of the Yamuna River in Delhi were razed overnight, reportedly in a bid for “beautification” of the city for the foreign guests.
It is imperative that both the executive and the courts recognise that, merely with the building of shelters, its Constitutional duties to homeless people do not end; they only begin. Shelters are not fit as a permanent destination for homeless people; rather they are only a necessary first step to rescue homeless people from the risks of death on the streets. The state needs to create ways so that the homeless are not compelled to sleep either on the streets, or permanently in shelters.
This requires a wide range of initiatives, first for affordable rental housing in sites close to where work is available, places of safety for women survivors of domestic violence and their children, a massive network of residential hostels in every city for homeless children, working men and women hostels, an urban employment guarantee programme, universal access to pensions, ration cards and election cards that they can access without a plethora of documents.
It is important to realise that homeless people do not choose the streets of their own volition. The streets choose them, because their needs, as laid down in the Constitution are not provided by the state.
In concluding, may we draw your attention to the talisman that the Father of the Nation left to guide later generations? He advised us “Whenever you are in doubt, or the self (ego) becomes too much with you, apply the following test: recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you may have seen and ask yourself whether the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him”. Who else but the homeless and possession-less city dweller can be that poorest and weakest human being?
It is this talisman that we respectfully commend at all times to India’s highest court.
SATYAMEVA JAYATE
Yours faithfully,
Constitutional Conduct Group