The Supreme Court on Wednesday called for a fresh examination of laws across the country that disqualify people with more than two children from contesting local body elections, holding that the population-control rationale behind such restrictions has “lost their relevance” with India’s fertility rate falling below replacement levels and the country facing the prospect of an ageing population.
The court added that the very foundation on which laws penalising people for having more than two children were enacted had changed, making their continued operation a matter requiring constitutional reconsideration. Emphasising that India must guard against a potentially irreversible decline in fertility and frame policies in tune with changing demographic realities, a bench of justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe referred the matter to a larger bench for reconsideration of a 2003 judgment that upheld the two-child norm . Seven states have repealed the provision, while 15 others do not have such a restriction.
The restriction is currently in force at least in six states — Assam , Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttarakhand , according to a compilation placed before the court by amicus curiae Rukmini Bobde.
The court observed that the assumptions underlying the earlier ruling in Javed Vs State of Haryana had been overtaken by demographic changes and could no longer be treated as valid.
no corresponding law was enacted at the central level While several states introduced such restrictions for local self-government institutions. Yet the anticipated revival in births had largely not materialised. It also noted that son preference often influenced reproductive decisions, with families seeking additional children until a male child was born.
Explaining why the legal position required reconsideration, the court noted that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) had fallen from 3.02 in 2003, when the judgment in the Javed case was delivered, to 1.9 in 2024, according to the Sample Registration System. The replacement fertility rate — the level at which one generation replaces itself without migration, is 2.1. The latest National Family Health Survey has similarly placed the rate at around 2.0. China abandoned its one-child policy in 2015 and subsequently allowed couples to have three children, besides introducing incentives and welfare measures to encourage childbirth. The court traced the origin of the two-child norm to the K Karunakaran Committee report (1993), which had recommended disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting elections at all levels, from panchayats to Parliament. An attempt to introduce a constitutional amendment in 1992 also failed to secure political consensus.
The experience of countries such as China and Japan, the bench said, offered important lessons. Such behaviour, the court said, could not be attributed to any particular socio-economic group and required broader policy responses rather than punitive electoral restrictions.
