Right to life includes convict’s right to procreate: Delhi HC

NEW DELHI: The right to life includes a convict’s right to procreate, the Delhi High Court has held while granting a four-week parole to a 41-year-old murder convict serving life term so that he could have a child with his wife, aged 38, with the help of certain medical procedures.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said a convict does not become a lesser citizen only due to his incarceration and, in the present case, where the “biological clock” of the convict and his partner may become a barrier for them to conceive once the sentence got over, the fundamental right to have a child “cannot be deemed to be surrendered in favour of the State”.

“Delay in having a biological child would mean curtailing this fundamental right to parenthood, due to incarceration of a convict. The right to procreate, in this court’s opinion, survives despite incarceration, in a certain set of facts and circumstances of a given case, as the present one,” Justice Sharma said in a recent order.

“This court has no hesitation to hold that the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India will include the right of a convict to have a child when he is not blessed with a biological child by being extended the relief of grant of parole for this purpose where he needs medical assistance and the biological clock due to his age may weaken and make prospects of having a child bleak,” the court said.

The court clarified that it was not dealing with the issue of grant of parole to maintain conjugal relationships and conjugal rights but the fundamental right of a convict to undergo treatment required to have a child as per the jail rules.

It added that the right to procreation is not absolute and has to be examined by taking into account various factors like the prisoner’s parental status and age, and a fair and just approach can be adopted to preserve the delicate equilibrium between individual rights and broader societal considerations.