Weaponising the Right to Health Against Peaceful Protest

Param Khandekar

Prominent Indian activist Sonam Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike in Delhi since 28 June 2026 demanding the resignation of the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged irregularities in examinations to study medicine. After a public interest litigation petition raised concerns over Wangchuk’s deteriorating health, on 16 July the Delhi High Court directed the State to continue monitoring his condition. Two days later, Delhi Police removed him from the protest site and admitted him to the hospital, citing concerns for his well-being. On 19 July, the Delhi High Court approved the state’s admission of Wangchuk to a government hospital as constitutional. The legality of these actions, including Wangchuk’s right to choose a private hospital, remains before the Court.

This episode raises civil liberty questions, from free speech to free assembly. But the most pressing one is whether the constitutional obligation can justify overriding the decisions of an individual who has consciously chosen to undertake a hunger strike as a form of political protest.

Hearing Wangchuk’s plea, the High Court emphasised that his health should continue to be monitored and that the decision regarding his treatment rested with the supervising medical team. When the matter returned before the Court following his removal to hospital, the Court accepted the State’s position that shifting him from the protest site did not, prima facie, infringe his personal liberty because the purpose was to protect his life. The Court held that final decisions regarding his treatment rested with the attending medical team, not with Wangchuk. This holding sits against two established lines of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution: the right to health and decisional autonomy.

Indian jurisprudence has long recognised the right to health as an affirmative obligation owed by the State to individuals. Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity v. State of West Bengal (1996) established that the State must ensure access to healthcare and cannot deny timely medical treatment. This is a positive obligation that requires the State to make healthcare available when needed; it does not transform the right to health into a power to compel medical treatment upon a competent adult who has consciously refused it.

Running alongside this line of authority is equally well-established jurisprudence on decisional autonomy. In K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court recognised bodily and decisional autonomy as integral components of the constitutional right to privacy. Common Cause v. Union of India (2018) further affirmed that a competent adult has the right to refuse medical treatment and determine how their body is to be treated. In Aruna Shanbaug v. Union of India (2011), the Supreme Court has also clarified that an external guardian, whether the state or the medical establishment, may decide on a patient’s treatment only where the patient is unable to give or communicate consent.

Considering this jurisprudence, the High Court’s reasoning cannot be squared with Article 21. The Court upheld the State’s decision to admit Wangchuk to a government hospital but also declined, at the interim stage, to permit his transfer to a hospital of his choosing. Further, by holding that the attending medical team would have the final say over his treatment, the Court displaced Wangchuk’s autonomy over his own body. The right to health cannot be interpreted to deprive a competent adult of the freedom to decide where and by whom they receive medical treatment. Constitutional guarantees of bodily autonomy and informed consent necessarily encompass the choice to determine one’s own medical care.

This decision is also inconsistent with the judgment in Aruna Shanbaug. Wangchuk was able to communicate his wishes at every stage. There was no incapacity to trigger the guardianship that the Court effectively assumed. Internationally, the WMA’s Malta Declaration and UNESCO’s Bioethics Declaration similarly require free, informed consent for treatment.

The Supreme Court in the past has held that while the State has a “bounden duty” to provide timely medical care to a protester whose life is at risk, that duty does not permit it to forcibly end the protest or override the protester’s chosen mode of dissent, except where necessary to save life. Wangchuk’s case arises out of a voluntary and peaceful hunger strike undertaken as a form of political protest. A competent adult who consciously chooses to fast retains the constitutional right to refuse medical treatment. By directing the State to ensure Wangchuk’s medical well-being while discounting his choice, the Court has enabled the State to invoke his health as a justification for removing him from the protest site and undermining his chosen mode of political expression. In doing so, the State’s obligation to protect health is being transformed into a means of suppressing peaceful dissent. In this case, the State has been able to weaponise the right to health to suppress a peaceful protest. That outcome sits uneasily with the constitutional values Article 21 was meant to protect.

Param Khandekar is a fourth year law student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, India