Failure to facilitate choice of a person violation of fundamental rights: Justice Sikri

There is a positive obligation on the state to facilitate autonomy and choice of a person, failing which in certain measure amounts to violation of the fundamental right of the individual concerned, Supreme Court Judge A K Sikri said today.

He made the remarks at the launch of a book, 'Dignity in the legal and political philosophy of Ronald Dworkin' here.

The book has been edited by senior Congress leader and Supreme Court advocate Salman Khurshid, lawyer Lokendra Malik and Surrey University professor Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco.

Dworkin was an American philosopher, jurist and scholar of United States Constitutional law. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 81.

The book launch event was also attended by Supreme Court advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Sidharth Luthra, while former Union minister P Chidambaram was seated among the audience.

"There is a positive obligation now on the state when we talk of the autonomy of a person, choice of a person, which gives him right to grow in the manner in which he wants, then it becomes the duty of the state to facilitate that.

"And therefore, if the state fails in that duty in certain measure, even in that context, it is violating the fundamental right of that person," Justice Sikri said.

He also cited several cases in which rights were conferred upon women, prisoners, disabled persons and transgenders by the apex court with an element of human dignity.

Congress leader Singhvi said, "He (Dworkin) spent a lifetime elucidating the vital necessity of imparting an unerodeable reassurance by each nation to its minorities. That is the true takeaway from Dworkin's dignity thesis. Dworkin's lessons therefore both within and without India are timeless."