FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
RIGHT TO EQUALITY
The right to equality is one of the six rights that have
been granted to Indians. In the Indian Constitution this right have been
described as:
The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of
religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.
No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of
birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction
or condition with regard to access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and
places of public entertainment; or the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats,
roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State
funds or dedicated to the use of the general public.
Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special
provision for women and children.
Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the
State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially
and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes
and the Scheduled Tribes.
Equal opportunity for all Indians
There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating
to employment or appointment to any office under the State. No citizen
shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of
birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against
in respect of, any employment or office under the State.
Nothing in this article shall prevent Parliament from making any law
prescribing, in regard to a class or classes of employment or appointment to
an office under the Government of, or any local or other authority within, a
State or Union territory, any requirement as to residence within that State
or Union territory prior to such employment or appointment.
Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision
for reservation in matters of promotion to any class or classes of posts in
the services under the State in favour of the Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled Tribes which, in the opinion of the State, are not adequately
represented in the services under the State. Nothing in this article shall
prevent the State from considering any unfilled vacancies of a year which
are reserved for being filled up in that year in accordance with any
provision for reservation made under clause (4) or clause (4A) as a separate
class of vacancies to be filled up in any succeeding year or years and such
class of vacancies shall not be considered together with the vacancies of
the year in which they are being filled up for determining the ceiling of
fifty per cent. reservation on total number of vacancies of that year.
Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any law which provides
that the incumbent of an office in connection with the affairs of any
religious or denominational institution or any member of the governing body
thereof shall be a person professing a particular religion or belonging to a
particular denomination.
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