Fertility Rate Falls to 1.9 from 3.0, Court Warns of Ageing Population and Shrinking Workforce

The Supreme Court, in a historic observation, has made it clear that rules barring candidates with more than two children from contesting panchayat and local body elections are no longer relevant in the present times. The Court pointed out that in 2003, India’s total fertility rate was 3.0, which has now declined to 1.9. The replacement fertility rate is considered to be 2.1, which is required for the new generation to replace the previous generation. The Court warned that due to the decline in fertility rate, the number of senior citizens in society may increase and the number of working people may decrease, which could have serious consequences in the future.

A bench of Justice P. S. Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe said that these provisions force citizens to choose between having children or participating in the democratic process, which violates the fundamental right to personal and reproductive freedom under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Former Sarpanch of Kakoda Gram Panchayat in Maharashtra, Mangla Bhimrao, was declared disqualified due to the birth of her third child. The High Court had upheld her disqualification under the Maharashtra Gram Panchayat Act, 1959. The Supreme Court has stayed the said order and referred the case to a larger bench to re-examine the constitutional validity of the ‘two-child norm’ given by a 3-judge bench in 2003 in the case of ‘Javed vs State of Haryana’.

According to information given to the Court, already 7 states have repealed this two-child norm and 15 states have no such compulsion. Nevertheless, the norm is still in force in states like Assam, Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Odisha and Uttarakhand.