JUSTICE SIKRI'S QUEST FOR HUMAN DIGNITY

As a Supreme Court judge, Justice AK Sikri reflected upon the debate on human dignity through several landmark judgments and scholarly works. Led by his legal initiatives, the apex court, time and again, recalled the principle of human dignity to identify jurisprudence around Article 21 of the Constitution

- Lokendra Malik & Shaileshwar Yadav

“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans, Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground; The emptiness of ages on his face, And on his back the burden of world."

THESE lines from the Edwin Markham's famous poem "Man with the Hoe” epitomise the reams of legal prose where rule of law and the rule of life run close together; a jurisprudence where human dignity matters abound. Human dignity is a quintessential idea based on philosophical understandings, which supplements human rights in the contemporary debate. Popularly it is understood as an inherent value of humans vis-à-vis the moral foundation of human rights. The conception of human dignity engrossed as the individual's dignity is touched upon only once in the preamble to the Indian Constitution, which reads it as “...assuring the dignity of the individual”. At the same time, a single reference to it spares us the opportunity to delve into a more significant debate around it. The Supreme Court of India has time and again recalled the principle of human dignity to identify jurisprudence around Article 21 of the Constitution.