Right to sleep a
fundamental right
A bench of Justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter
Kumar was unanimous that the police erred gravely by clamping prohibitory
orders under Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code on the night of June 4 when
the gathering at Ramdev's yoga camp was sleeping peacefully.
Though Justice Kumar wrote
the lead judgment, Justice Chauhan on sleep as a fundamental right crucial to
life and put it on the same plane as right to privacy and right to food,
consistently held by the Supreme Court as an inviolable right which was part of
right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
"Right of privacy and
the right to sleep have always been treated to be a fundamental right like a
right to breathe, to eat, to drink, to blink etc," he said while slamming
Delhi Police for using unwarranted force on the sleeping crowd, thereby
breaching fundamental right to privacy.
Justice Chauhan said.He said sleep
for a human being was a basic necessity and not a luxury. "If this sleep
is disturbed, the mind gets disoriented and it disrupts the health cycle. If
this disruption is brought about in odd hours preventing an individual from
getting normal sleep, it also causes energy misbalance, indigestion and also
affects cardiovascular health," the judge said.
"Sleep, therefore, is a
self-rejuvenating element of our life cycle and is, therefore, part and parcel
of human life. The disruption of sleep is to deprive a person of a basic
priority, resulting in adverse metabolic effects," he said.
"To
arouse a person suddenly brings about a feeling of shock and numbness. The
pressure of a sudden awakening results in almost a void of sensation. Such an
action, therefore, does affect the basic life of an individual," Justice
Chauhan said.
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