The High Court of Meghalaya came to hear an interesting case under public interest litigation in PIL No. 6/2021. Chief Justice and his colleague decided the case and pronounced their Judgment on 23-06-2021. In fact, such Judgement arose from the coercive [State] Government Order invoking compulsory vaccination drive to its people.
Whereas the Judges say that the right to get vaccinated lies in the hands of the people and the State cannot force them as Article 21 of our Constitution protects such rights of the people from forced vaccination. No doubt, the High Court was very correct in its verdict as far as censuring the State over compulsory vaccination drive. The Judgment reaffirmed my stand on this [please refer my previous editorial].
It is pertinent to mention here, while the High Court was hearing this PIL, the State Government revoked its earlier Order [compulsory] and came out with Persuasive Advisory. Wherein, under Persuasive Advisory, the Government Authorities would now persuade the “hesitant group” to take the vaccine.
[Readers may please remember that compulsory means mandatory and what State Government said as mandatory, the High Court interpreted as “coercive” and which can never be implemented by the State against the wishes of its people under Article 21 of the Constitution, Court observed. And Persuasive Advisory is not mandatory but it is directory and the same was acknowledged by the High Court as the same does not infringe fundamental rights of the people, Court opines.]
The High Court, welcomed such persuasive advisory of the State and went a step further in its 8 pages Judgment, categorizes institutions under two heads; Vaccinated and Not Vaccinated. Those who are not vaccinated are persuaded to get vaccinated, it says.
Otherwise what concerns me in this Judgment is, both category of institutions was directed to use Vaccinated and Not Vaccinated Stickers at their workplaces, and if not followed, the Court directs the State as follows;
“In the event, any shops / establishments / local taxis / auto rickshaws / maxi cabs and buses flouts the above directions, the concerned authority of the State shall immediately direct its closure/stoppage of plying.”
The Court in the first three pages of its Judgment rebukes the State for taking away fundamental rights of the people contemplated in the Constitution, and then in rest of the pages it differentiates the people under Vaccinated and Not Vaccinated category and order the authority to close or stop their livelihood had they not affixed such sticker – what is the rationale behind such an irrational direction is beyond my understanding!
The Court was haste in understanding that shops and establishments are just a non-living, lest forgetting that every shops and establishments are driven by men and women as workforce.
And when the Court says that people cannot be forced for vaccination but only through persuasion then its own direction – Vaccinated or Not Vaccinated and those flouting its “sticker” command – are called to snatch away their livelihood – is not that the Court contradict its own interpretation of forced vaccination?
Unfortunately, such direction would now be executed by the employers strictly on their poor employees under the “coercive dismissal dictum.” It is another form of irrational and arbitrary power transfer from the State to a private person to accomplish the task which prevented the State from being implemented under the Constitution.
Show me, which employer is compassionate enough to engage in persuasive talks with its employees when his business is at stake – if he does not come out of the tag of “Not Vaccinated” sticker?