Olga Tellis v/s Bombay Municipal Corporation - Key

Legal Precedent and Social Impact

The Constitution of India is an epitome of justice, equality, and morality as a result of
several historical rulings that have occurred in India. Olga Tellis & Ors. v. Bombay
Municipal Corporation & Ors, which launched as a model of democratic state
administration, was one of those rulings that expanded the definition of fundamental
rights.

The decision acknowledges the second generation's rights as the cornerstones of the
first generation's rights, or the basic rights, and grants the application of broad
interpretation because the judiciary serves as a mechanism to uphold the fundamental
rights by acting in the place of the legislature to direct governmental policies. The
sentence tends to pave the thanks to broadening the scope of the proper to live and
provides up the infraction unreasonabl

Fact Score Of The Case

The Supreme Court of India received writ petitions from pavement and slum residents in
India. In the city of Bombay, this group of individuals made up about half the population.
In accordance with Section 314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, the
respondents-the State of Maharashtra and the Bombay Municipal Corporation�decided
to forcibly evict all pavement and slum or bust dwellers in the city of Bombay and deport
them to their respective countries of origin or remove them to locations outside the city.
As a result of the ruling, the Bombay Municipal Corporation did in fact destroy several of
the petitioners' pavement homes.

The petitioners argue that the Bombay Municipal Corporation's eviction decision is
unfair and unjustified because it does not include alternative housing. The petitioners
asserted that their right to life under Article 32 of the Constitution, which is guaranteed
by Article 32 of the Constitution, includes the right to subsistence. Additionally,
petitioners argued that Articles 14, 19, and 21 were violated by Sections 312, 313 and
314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, rendering them illegal.
Issues Of The Case:

Whether estoppel cannot be claimed against fundamental rights?

Whether the forcible eviction and removal of pavement and slum dwellers from their
hutments under the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act deprives them of their means of
livelihood and consequently right to life?

The meaning of the right to life. Whether the right to livelihood is included in the right to
life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India?

Whether Pavement Dwellers are included as trespassers under the Indian Penal Code?

Whether a writ petition against procedurally ultra vires government action is

maintainable?

Whether the Power to remove these encroachments without notice, when permissible
by Section 314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, ultra vires the Constitution?

How far is the exclusion of natural justice permissible?

Rules Applied

Constitution Of India, 1950

Article 14: Equality before law

Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place
of birth

Article 16: Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment

Article 19: Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech, etc.

Article 21: Protection of life and personal liberty

Article 22: Protection against arrest and detention in certain cases

Article 25: Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of
religion

Article 29: Protection of interest of minorities

Article 32: Remedies for enforcement of rights conferred by this Part

Article 37: Application of the principles contained in this Part

Article 39: Certain principles of policy to be followed by the State

Article 41: Right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases

Indian Penal Code, 1860

Section 441: Criminal Trespass- Whoever enters into or upon property in the possession
of another with intent to commit an offence or to intimidate, insult or annoy any person
in possession of such property, or having lawfully entered into or upon such property,
unlawfully remains there with intent thereby to intimidate, insult or annoy any such
person, or with intent to commit an offence, is said to commit "criminal trespass."

Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888

Section 312: Prohibition of structures or fixtures which cause obstruction in streets. �

No person shall, except with the permission of the Commissioner under Section 310 or
317, erect or set up any wall, fence, rail, post, step, booth or other structure or fixture in
or upon any street or upon or over any open channel, drain, well or tank in any street so
as to form an obstruction to, or an encroachment upon, or a projection over, or to
occupy, any portion of such street, channel, drain, well or tank.

Nothing in this Section shall be deemed to apply to any erection or thing to which clause
(c) of Section 322 applies.

Section 313: Prohibition of deposit. etc. of things in streets:

No person shall, except with the written permission of the Commissioner, �

place or deposit upon any street or upon any open channel, drain or well in any streets
[or in any public place] any stall, chair, bench, box, ladder, bale or other thing so as to
form an obstruction thereto or encroachment thereon;

project, at a height of less than twelve feet from the surface of the street, any board, or
shelf, beyond the line of the plinth of any building, over any street, or over any open
channel, drain, well or tank in any street;

attach to, or suspend from, any wall or portion of a building abutting on a street, at a
less height than aforesaid, anything whatever.

Nothing in clause (a) applies to building materials.

Section 314:

Power to remove without notice anything erected, deposited or hawked in contravention

of Section 312, 313 or 313A.

Analysis

Estoppel and waiver against the Constitution and Fundamental Rights, respectively, are
never permissible. The rights that the Constitution grants each person are not
negotiable. Any such admission made in a hearing, regardless of whether it resulted
from a legal error or not, cannot serve as a bar against him in further actions. As thus,
the fundamental goal of the Constitution's provisions would be harmed and defeated.

When asked if the petitioners should have the right to a hearing because they were
labeled criminals, the court said that it is necessary to comprehend the fundamental
components of trespassing before labeling them trespassers under Section 441 of the
IPC. "Commit an offence or intimidate, insult, or annoy any person" are the required
elements.

However, none of these conditions are satisfied in this instance. These encroachments
are only an unintentional action that these people are forced to carry out as a result of
their challenging personal circumstances. Even though trespassing is a tort, the law of
torts requires that any force used to eject a trespasser be fair and that he be given the
correct amount of opportunity and time to leave.
The right to life is significantly more expansive than this definition suggests; it goes
beyond the restriction that it cannot be threatened absent a legal procedure. The court
acknowledged that the right to life is founded on the notion of livelihood because no
one can support themselves without it. The simplest approach to undermine the intent
of Article 21 is to exclude livelihood from the list of Fundamental Rights.

The Supreme Court also stated that denying someone this right should only be done in
conformity with the law since doing so would result in denying someone their right to
life, and denying someone their right to this right would also be a violation of Articles
39(a) and 41 of the Constitution. While placing more emphasis on the inclusion of
livelihood in Article 21, the Supreme Court also made it abundantly apparent that such
regulations may unquestionably be repealed through a system that is created in
accordance with the law.

As a result, Sections 312(1), 313(1)(a), and 314 that give the commissioner the authority
to remove encroachments from public spaces and footpaths cannot be regarded as
unfair or unreasonable because they do not violate the principle of natural justice and
instead serve as an exception to the rule (as they follow the legal process in specific
situations). Hence, not arbitrary.

One may say that this case is a ruling that changes the substantive law. Bentham
separated the study of law into two categories: expositorial (what the law is) and
censorial (what the law should be). Olga Tellis expanded the ambit of Article 21 of the
Constitution to include the right to livelihood and the right to shelter as parts of the right
to life, shifting the emphasis from censorial jurisprudence to expositorial jurisprudence.

Justice Chandrachud writes in Paragraph 32 of his ruling,:

"An equally important facet of that right is the right to livelihood because, no person can
live without the means of living, that is, the means of livelihood. If the right to livelihood
is not treated as a part of the constitutional right to life, the easiest way of depriving a
person of his right to life would be to deprive him of his means of livelihood to the point
of abrogation." The Bentam principle of changing the law through its structure is clearly
followed in this perspective of the Hon'ble Court.
The law, according to Bentham, is an accumulation of signs that are indicative of a
violation and are conceived or adopted by the sovereign in a state with regard to the
behaviour that must be adhered to in a particular situation by a specific individual or
group of individuals who are or are presumed to be under his control. This definition is
therefore flexible enough to embrace a range of aims that are so closely related and to
which there would be such frequent occasions to apply the same proposition, despite
the fact that it centres on the idea that law is certain and established, or positum.

Therefore, when Justice Chandrachud asserts in the current case that "no person can
live without means of living," he is equating the closely related occurrences of life,
liberty, and livelihood while also reforming the law established under Article 21 in
accordance with Bentamite jurisprudence.

Conclusion

The Court ruled that no estoppels could be claimed against Fundamental Rights. The
pavements dwellers have the Right to Livelihood which is considered in the sweep of
Right to Life. The Court, further, encouraged alternate resettlements. The Court
interpreted that Section 314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act 1888 was the
discretion of the Municipal Commissioner and should be enforced reasonably.

Further, the Court added that since, the Petitioners lived on the slums not by choice, but
by a reason of involuntary acts; it did not include a mala fide intent, and thus was not a
Criminal trespass.

The principles laid down by this case have largely been affirmed in many subsequent
cases leading to evictions without the settlement. For eg. In the Narmada cases, many
of the evictees have not been properly resettled. This case is widely quoted as
exemplifying the use of civil and political rights to advance social rights but it is also
viewed as problematic due to its failure to provide for the right to resettlement.