SC questions 119 ‘discriminatory’ laws against leprosyafflicted

NEWDELHI: A PIL highlighting the violation of fundamental rights of leprosy-affected people due to archaic central and state laws prompted the Supreme Court to ask the Centre on Monday whether such provisions need to continue in statute books.

Filed by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (VCLP), the petition listed 119 laws that discriminate against leprosy patients and stigmatise them.

Such outdated provisions deny them access to public services, impose disqualifications on them under personal laws and prohibited them from occupying or standing for public posts or office, the plea said.

“The seminal issue highlighted in the petition is in the third decade of 21st century. There is no justification to treat a person suffering from leprosy as a man to be kept away from the mainstream and suffer from ignominy that the disease is infectious or something to do with genetics. With the discovery of modern medicine, the disease is curable,” a bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said, giving eight weeks to the Centre to place its response.

VCLP supported its case by citing several provisions from various laws.

One such is Section 13 of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, which allows dissolution of marriage if one of the partners has been “suffering from a virulent and incurable form of leprosy.”

The Orissa Municipal Corporation Act, 2003, disqualifies a leprosy patient from contesting the civil polls, as does the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994.

Some of the impugned provisions VCLP has quoted violate the right to move freely throughout the territory of India and the right to practise any profession.

HINDU MARRIAGE ACT ALLOWS DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE IF ONE OF THE PARTNERS SUFFERS FROM ‘AN INCURABLE FORM OF LEPROSY’