JUDGMENT

CHANDRACHUD, CJI., :— These Writ Petitions portray the plight of lakhs of persons who live on pavements and in slums in the city of Bombay. They constitute nearly half the population of the city. The first group of petitions relates to pavement dwellers while the second group relates to both pavement and Basti or slum dwellers. Those who have made pavements their homes exist in the midst of filth and squalor, which has to be seen to be believed. Rabid dogs in search of stinking meat and cats in search of hungry rats keep them company. They cook and sleep where they ease, for no conveniences are available to them. Their daughters. come of age, bathe under the nosy gaze of passers by, unmindful of the feminine sense of bashfulness. The cooking and washing over, women pick lice from each others hair. The boys beg. Menfolk, without occupation, snatch chains with the connivance of the defenders of law and order; when caught, if at all, they say: "Who doesnt commit crimes in this city?"

2. It is these men and women who have come to this Court to ask for a judgment that they cannot be evicted from their squalid shelters without being offered alternative accommodation. They rely for their rights on Art. 21 of the Constitution which guarantees that no person shall be deprived of his life except according to procedure established by law. They do not contend that they have a right to live on the payments. Their contention is that they have a right to live, a right which cannot be exercised without the means of livelihood. They have no option but to flock to big cities like Bombay, which provide the means of bare subsistence. They only choose a pavement or a slum which is nearest to their place of work. In a word, their plea is that the right to life is illusory without a right to the protection of the means by which alone life can be lived. And. the right of life can only be taken away or abridged by a procedure established by law, which has to be fair and reasonable, not fanciful or arbitrary such as is prescribed by the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act or the Bombay Police Act. They also rely upon their right to reside and settle in any part of the country which is guaranteed by Art. 19(f)(e).

3. The three petitioners in the group of Writ Petitions 4610-4612 of 1981are a journalist and two pavement dwellers. One of these two pavement dwellers, P. Angamuthu, migrated from Salem, Tamil Nadu, to Bombay in the year 1961 in search of employment. He was a landless labourer in his home town but he was rendered jobless because of drought. He found a job in a Chemical Company at Dahisar, Bombay, on a daily wage of Rs. 23/- per day. A slum-lord extorted a sum of Rs. 2,500/- from him in exchange of a shelter of plastic sheets and canvas on a pavement on the Western Express Highway, Bombay. He lives in it with his wife and three daughters who are 16, 13 and 5 years of age.

4. The second of the two pavement dwellers came to Bombay in 1969 from Sangamner, District Ahmednagar. Maharashtra. He was a cobbler earning 7 to 8 rupees a day, but his so-called house in the village fell down. He got employment in Bombay as a Badli Kamgar for Rs. 350/- per month. He was lucky in being able to obtain a "dwelling house" on a pavement at Tulsiwadi by paying Rs. 300/- to a goonda. of the locality. The bamboos and the plastic sheets cost him Rs. 700/-.

5. On July, 13, 1981, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Shri A. R. Antulay, made an announcement which was given wide publicity by the newspapers that all pavement Jwellers in the city of Bombay will be evicted forcibly and deported to their respective places of origin or removed to places outside he city of Bombay. The Chief Minister directed the Commissioner of Police to provide the necessary assistance to respondent 1, the Bombay Municipal Corporation, to demolish the pavement dwellings and deport the pavement dwellers. The apparent justification which the Chief Minister gave to his announcement was: "