According to the WHO, it is the state’s legal obligation to ensure uniform access to “timely, acceptable, and affordable health care of appropriate quality as well as to provide for the underlying determinants of health, such as safe and potable water, sanitation, food, housing, health-related information and education, and gender equality” to all its people.[1]

When Article 21 guarantees Right to Life and Personal Liberty, it also covers Right to Health within its ambit. Although it is not mentioned directly, Right to Health has paved its way into fundamental rights through the Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 39 (E) directs the State to secure health of workers, Article 42 directs the State to just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief, Article 47 casts a duty on the State to raise the nutrition levels and standard of living of people and to improve public health.[2]

It was in the case of  Bandhua Mukti Morcha v Union of India & Ors[3] that the Supreme Court recognized the Right to Health to be included under the purview of Right to Life as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. Subsequently, in the case of State of Punjab & Ors v Mohinder Singh Chawla[4], the apex court reaffirmed that the right to health is fundamental to the right to life and should be put on record that the government had a constitutional obligation to provide health services.[5]

In a recent case of Chintan Jain v. CBI[6], it has been held by the Gauhati High Court that receiving appropriate medical treatment is a right but it cannot be made liberalised by choosing a private hospital of own choice when the same treatment is very much available in the government hospitals. The case revolved around an arrested person being under medication. When the jail doctor suggested medical treatment in a hospital and the same treatment was very much available in the Government Hospital, the Court denied allowing the petitioner to be treated in a private hospital of his choice. In this case, the fundamental right is not impaired; only the conversion of right into privilege is restricted.