Point of Law: The right to life enshrined in Article 21 cannot be restricted to mere animal existence. It means something much more than just physical survival. The right to life includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely, the bare necessaries of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter, and facilities for reading, writing and expressing oneself in diverse forms, freely moving about and mixing and commingling with fellow human beings. Every act which offends against or impairs human dignity would constitute deprivation pro tanto of this right to live and the restriction would have to be in accordance with reasonable, fair and just procedure established by law which stands the test of other fundamental rights.

JUDGMENT :

J.B. PARDIWALA, J.

1. By this writ application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the writ-applicants, third year MBBS students, have prayed for the following reliefs :

“A. Be pleased to hold and declare that impugned resolution dated 17.07.2020 issued by Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat and following circular dated 22.07.2020 and show cause notice 23.07.2020 is arbitrary, discriminatory, irrational, de hors the power, disproportionate, unreasonable exercise of power suffers from unreasonable restriction on fundamental rights and excessive delegation of legislative power without guideline and in addition violative of Section 65 of the Disaster Management Act 2005 read with sub-clause 9 of clause 11 of Gujarat Covid Regulations 2020 notified on 13.03.2020 and be pleased to therefore declare the same to be violative of Articles 14, 19 & 21 of the Constitution of India and hence being unconstitutional be further pleased to quash and set aside the same;

B. Be pleased to permanently restrain the Respondent from operating, implementing and executing in any manner whatsoever, impugned resolution dated 17.07.2020 annexed at Annexure A, followed by impugned circular dated 22.07.2020 annexed at Annexure B followed by show cause notice dated 23.07.2020 annexed at Annexure C;

C. Be pleased to restrain the Respondents from compelling Petitioner students to compulsorily perform duties and render services as ‘Corona Sahayak’ while holding that compelling petitioner students to become ‘Corona Sahayak' is illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional and be further pleased to restrain respondents from compelling petitioner students from mandatorily rendering services as ‘Corona Sahayak’;

D. Be pleased to hold and declare that circular dated 22.07.2020 annexed at Annexure B, is de hors the power, authority and jurisdiction and that the power to not grant the term and thereby prevent the petitioner students from appearing in the 3rd year final University examination is violative of relevant provisions of Epidemic Disease Act, 1897 and the Disaster Management Act, 2005 as well as rules and regulations framed thereunder and be pleased to declare the same to be illegal and unlawful and be further pleased to quash and set aside the same;

E. Be pleased to grant Interim and ad interim relief in terms of paragraphs 9 (A), (B), (C) and (D);

F. During the pendency and till the final disposal of this Petition, be pleased to stay the operation, implementation and execution of the impugned resolution dated 17.07.2020 annexed at Annexure A, followed by impugned circular dated 22.07.2020 annexed at Annexure B followed by show cause notice dated 23.07.2020 annexed at Annexure C;

G. Be pleased to pass an order dispensing the affidavit of the Petitioner and be further pleased to pass an order dispensing the typed copies of all annexures on account of the prevailing pandemic;

H. Be pleased to pass any other and further order as may be deemed fit in the interest of justice and equity.”

2. This litigation has thoroughly disappointed this Court. We may observe that it is very unfortunate to adjudicate the writ-application of the present nature and that too at the instance of medical students. Over a period of time, this Court has been monitoring the Writ Petition (PIL) No.42 of 2020 relating to the current pandemic situation. Various orders have been passed over a period of time. The last order is dated 24th July 2020, wherein we observed as under :

“APPEAL TO THE DOCTORS AS FRONT-LINE WARRIORS After almost 2 months of lockdown, people breathed a sigh of relief as life slowly started getting back to normal. However, our doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff have not had that privilege yet. They still work unbelievably long hours in suffocating PPE kits and masks, without taking breaks, only to save lives. We have always h