Bodily autonomy and integrity are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution, holds Supreme Court The Supreme Court on Monday upheld both the right of an individual against forcible vaccination and the government’s current vaccination policy to protect communitarian health, but found certain vaccine mandates imposed by State governments/Union Territories, which tend to deny access to basic welfare measures and freedom of movement to unvaccinated individuals, disproportionate.
A Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao said that such vaccine mandates wilted in the face of “emerging scientific opinion” that the risk of transmission of COVID-19 infection from unvaccinated individuals was almost on par with that from vaccinated persons.
“With respect to bodily integrity and personal autonomy of an individual in the light of vaccines and other public health measures introduced to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are of the opinion that bodily integrity is protected under Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution and no individual can be forced to be vaccinated,” the Supreme Court laid down.
The court, however, said neither the Union government nor the States had produced any “material” to counter the opinion raised in the petition filed by Jacob Puliyel, a former member of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, that a vaccinated individual could spread the virus as much as his or her unvaccinated counterpart.
“In light of this, restrictions on unvaccinated individuals imposed by various vaccine mandates by the State governments and Union Territories are not said to be proportionate,” Justice Rao noted.
Here in Sri Lanka, they just repealed the gazette that prevented the non-vaccinated from being in "public-places" (despite not defining what said place was).