New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday questioned whether reproductive choices can be made a condition for democratic participation, referring its 2003 judgment in Javed v State of Haryana, which upheld the two-child norm for panchayat candidates, to a larger bench for reconsideration.
A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said laws penalising people for having more than two children had lost their relevance in the face of changing demographic realities.
“We are of the strong opinion that laws that penalise having more than two children have lost their relevance. The foundation of such laws, i.e. the fear of overpopulation, has crumbled due to demographic changes in the past few decades,” the court said.
It added that the decision on whether, when and how many children to have was a deeply personal choice that should remain free from external coercion.
The reference came in an appeal filed by a woman named Mangala Bhimrao Ingle, who had challenged a Bombay High Court decision upholding her disqualification as the sarpanch of Kakoda Gram Panchayat in Maharashtra under the state’s two-child norm. In November 2025, the Supreme Court had stayed the high court’s order.
Ingle was disqualified following a complaint before the additional collector. The high court found that she had attempted to disassociate herself from the birth certificate of her third child. However, it held that the document, which named her as one of the child’s parents, could not be disregarded in the absence of evidence to contradict it.
From slogan to statute
India’s family planning policies emerged from post-Independence concerns about rapid population growth and its impact on economic development and food security. The country launched the world’s first national family planning programme in 1952, promoting contraception and, controversially, sterilisation as population control measures.
The widely popularised slogan “Hum do, hamare do (we two, our two)” came to represent the country’s family planning ideal.
In 1991, the National Development Council (NDC) constituted the Committee on Population, headed by K. Karunakaran, to frame a comprehensive national population policy amid concerns following the 1991 Census.
The committee recommended disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting elections, from panchayats to Parliament. However, the recommendation was adopted unevenly, with several states restricting local body elections but no corresponding central law being enacted.
Over the years, private members’ bills have also sought to introduce a two-child norm for elected representatives and government employees. However, none has become law.
The Supreme Court questioned the selective application of such restrictions, observing that imposing them only on elected representatives at the panchayati raj level was discriminatory and inconsistent with the principle of universal adult franchise.
Also Read: SC questions relevance of two-child norm, says it infringes reproductive autonomy
What the amicus report found
In July 2026, while hearing Ingle’s petition, the Supreme Court appointed an amicus curiae to examine the two-child policy across states.
Amicus curiae Rukmini Bobde submitted a compilation highlighting the absence of a uniform policy. According to the report, seven states had repealed the two-child norm, nine continued to retain one or more such provisions relating to elections or public employment, while 15 states did not have such a policy.
States that continue to enforce the norm include Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttarakhand.
The report also highlighted that the restriction was not limited to panchayat elections. It applied to state civil services in Assam, police recruitment in Rajasthan, and judicial services in Maharashtra.
The validity of the two-child condition for Rajasthan Police recruitment was unsuccessfully challenged before the Rajasthan High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court in the Ramji Lal Jat case.
The Javed case and its influence
In Javed v State of Haryana (2003), the Supreme Court examined the constitutional validity of the two-child norm under the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994.
The petitioners had argued that disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting panchayat elections was arbitrary and violated their rights to equality under Article 14, personal liberty and reproductive autonomy under Article 21, and religious freedom under Article 25.
The state defended the provision as a measure to promote population control and family welfare.
A bench of Justices R.C. Lahoti, Ashok Bhan and Arun Kumar upheld the provision, ruling that the classification between people with more than two living children and others had a rational connection with the objective of population control and family welfare. It also held that the right to contest panchayat elections was a statutory right that could be regulated by the legislature.
The court rejected the argument that the provision violated religious freedom, observing that the Muslim personal law permitting polygamy did not make having more than two children a religious obligation.
The ruling subsequently influenced other judgments on eligibility conditions for public office.
In its 2016 Rajbala judgment, the Supreme Court relied on the case while upholding amendments to the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act that introduced additional eligibility conditions for panchayat candidates. These included minimum educational qualifications, restrictions on candidates with outstanding dues to specified cooperative institutions or unpaid electricity bills, and the requirement of a functional toilet at their residence.
The petitioners had argued that these conditions disproportionately excluded poor, rural and marginalised sections, particularly women and Scheduled Castes, from political participation.
The court acknowledged that the educational requirements would make around 68 per cent of Scheduled Caste women and 41 per cent of Scheduled Caste men ineligible to contest elections. However, it held that the right to vote and contest panchayat elections, though constitutional rights, were not unrestricted fundamental rights.
The Javed precedent was also relied upon in the Ramji Lal Jat case. In 2024, the Supreme Court upheld Rule 24(4) of the Rajasthan Police Subordinate Service Rules, 1989, which disqualified candidates with more than two children born on or after June 1, 2002, from appointment as police constables.
Ramji Lal Jat, a former serviceman who had applied for the post in 2018, argued that the rule should not apply to former servicemen. The Rajasthan High Court upheld the provision, holding that prescribing eligibility conditions for government employment fell within the state’s policy domain. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, relying on Javed.
Changing demographics and reproductive autonomy
In the present case, the bench questioned the reasoning adopted in Javed, observing that even when the judgment was delivered, its reasoning was difficult to sustain in light of evolving constitutional jurisprudence.
The court also cited India’s changing demographic profile. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen from 3.0 in 2003, when Javed was decided, to 1.9 in 2024. A TFR of 2.1 is generally considered the replacement level, at which a population replaces itself from one generation to the next.
The court said the decline pointed towards the possibility of an ageing population in the future, even though India’s population was not yet declining.
China’s experience
The bench also revisited the reference to China in the Javed judgment, which had cited the country’s population control measures as an example of successful family planning.
China abandoned its one-child policy in 2015, but the anticipated revival in births did not materialise. The Supreme Court said this demonstrated the dangers of treating fertility reduction as a policy achievement that could be reversed at will.
The bench also highlighted the disproportionate impact of the two-child norm on women, questioning the Javed judgment’s approach of treating men and women equally for disqualification.
It observed that reproductive decisions concerning women were often influenced by their husbands, leaving women vulnerable to electoral disqualification for choices over which they might have little control.
The court also flagged the wider implications of the Javed precedent for political representation, noting that its reasoning had subsequently been used to justify restrictions based on educational and socioeconomic conditions.
“The choice of whether, when, and how many children to have is a decision of the most intimate and personal character, which must ordinarily remain within the autonomous domain of the individual, free from external coercion,” the bench said.
It added that disqualifying a person from elections following the birth of a third child effectively forced them to choose between exercising reproductive autonomy and participating in democratic governance.
(Edited by Anupama Yadav)
Also Read: India cannot leave family planning to individual motivation: Indira Gandhi