Protection Against Unemployment - A Fundamental Right? A Study In The Context Of Indian Constitution, Indian Judiciary & International Perspectives

Abstract

The Constitution of India aims at extemporizing the socioeconomic status of the individuals. It guarantees every citizen a Right to Life which is the basic right of all the Fundamental Rights, and directs the State to provide him or her livelihood adequate for leading a meaningful life. The Judiciary widened the extent of this Right by describing it as not mere leading a life but living with human dignity. Towards this direction, the Right to Work has been recognized as integral part of the Right to Life since it is the crucial component and indispensable element to be able to live, and to have a continuous improvement in the living conditions. However, for the last several years, the State is engaging workers through casual, contract, co-terminus, adhoc and outsourcing methods - impeding the efficiency of the laborers, demeaning their living, promoting litigious employment, and enhancing the unemployment rate. This has therefore become a serious social concern across the country where a large number of people are struggling for secured employment which is to be studied and addressed in the context of the Indian constitutional, judiciary and international perspectives. Recently, the Judiciary which is the protector of the Fundamental Rights is of the view that the system of "outsourcing" of employment is only a sham and a trick to avoid extending to the workers their legitimate work entitlements. This article is relevant to the Socio-legal research based on the Black-letter as well as Empirical studies which concluded that Protection Against Unemployment is a Fundamental Right under the Right to Life in which the Right to Work is integrated, and this is the high time for having a definite Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) to promote employment security in the country.