Voices on Law

Introduction A robust healthcare infrastructure is very important for the development and growth of any nation. In most of the developed nations, great care has been given towards creating an inclusive and all-encompassing system to make sure that every citizen gets treated for their ailment. Since the conception of the Constitution of India, deep significance has been given to Healthcare. Even before the independence, the leaders of the era knew that an independent nation would need good healthcare facilities. The Nehru report viewed healthcare as an important constitutional right. A similar provision was presented in the Karachi Resolution which stated that industrial workers had to be provided with the ‘healthy condition of works’. Both Nehru Report & Karachi Resolution primarily viewed healthcare as a problem related to ‘work’ and ‘worker’. [1] Article 39(e) of the Indian Constitution provides that the State shall direct its policy towards securing the health and strength of w...

  In India, wealth inequality has been sharply rising over the last three decades. In a recent report titled ‘Time To Care’ by Oxfam India, it was reported that the top 1% of the population holds more than four times the amount of wealth held by 95.3 crore people or the bottom 70% of the population. [1] This wealth inequality has become a systemic inequality, creeping into all the spheres of life including access to justice. The Supreme Court of India has regularly taken cognizance of this unequal access to justice. In the Hussainara Khatoon case, Bhagwati J. opined that the poor find the Indian legal and judicial system oppressive and heavily weighted against them. This has often fostered a feeling of frustration and despair among the poor and that they are helplessly in a position of inequality with the non-poor. [2] To add fuel to the fire, the contemporary state of the Indian judicial system is often characterized as a crippling mechanism on the verge of collapsing under it...