Noting that the fear of overpopulation has crumbled due to falling fertility rate in India, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said laws penalising people for having more than two children have lost relevance.More than 23 years after the top court upheld the validity of a Haryana law restraining those having more than two children from holding the office of sarpanch or a panch of a Gram Panchayat or a member of a Panchayat Samiti or Zila Parishad, a Bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe referred the issue to a larger Bench for reconsideration in the changed circumstances.“We have revisited the legality, propriety, as well as constitutional morality of the statutory provision imposing certain drastic disabilities and disqualifications for bearing more than two children. When this court upheld it in Javed (Javed & Others versus State of Haryana & Others-2003) it was under an assumption that “population explosion” is an “impediment” for “progress”,” the Bench said.“Today, after more than two decades the very formulation of the policy coupled with reasons for repelling its challenge, have collapsed. Even if the law was legal and valid at the time of its making, it has become invalid as the foundation on which it rested has changed.“For the reasons stated above, we deem it appropriate to refer the matter to a larger bench for reconsideration of the ratio laid down in Javed v. State of Haryana. Registry is directed to place our judgment and order before the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India to constitute an appropriate Bench,” it said.Underlining the population decline trend, the Bench said that between 1971 and 2024, the crude birth rate fell from 36.9 to 18.3 births per 1,000 people, while the TFR fell from 5.2 to 1.9 children per woman, as per the Sample Registration System (SRS) estimates the birth rate halved; the TFR fell by almost two-thirds.“It is well known that a rate of 2.1 is regarded as the replacement level, that is, the level at which one generation exactly replaces itself without migration. Therefore, a fertility rate of 1.9, as recorded by the SRS, means that India is below replacement level fertility. This extraordinary phenomenon, and the reality of rapidly declining population growth rates, has gone unnoticed because of the simple fact that we have a large population,” the top court said.“The share of persons aged 60 years and above has already risen from about 8.3% in 2014 to 9.7% in 2024,16 and Government projections place that share at nearly 15% by 2036,” it said, adding, “India’s falling fertility rate today necessarily means a smaller proportion of younger persons tomorrow, as compared to today, and, correspondingly, a larger ageing population.”The Bench said, “We are of the strong opinion that laws that penalise having more than two children have lost their relevance. The foundation of such laws, i.e. the fear of overpopulation, has crumbled due to demographic changes in the past few decades.”The verdict came on a petition filed by Mangala Bhimrao Ingle, whose election as ‘sarpanch’ of Kakoda Gram Panchayat was set aside on the grounds that she was disqualified from contesting the polls as she had more than two children that went against Section 14(1)(j-1) of the Maharashtra Village Panchayats Act, 1959.Noting that the right to make reproductive decisions is an integral facet of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, the top court said, “These constitutional guarantees would be rendered illusory if the State were permitted to achieve indirectly, through the imposition of adverse civil or political consequences, that which it cannot ordinarily compel directly. Reproductive autonomy is not entirely immune from regulation, but any such restriction must be continuously tested for its reasonableness.”It said, “The pursuit of population control cannot, by itself, justify coercive interference with the married couple’s decision to bear children. The imposition of electoral disqualification upon the birth of a third child places a person in the position of choosing between the exercise of their reproductive autonomy and continued participation in democratic governance.Citing a 2009 study sponsored by the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj concerning the implementation of the norm in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, the Bench noted that the application of a two-child norm in a patriarchal social framework has tended to weaken the position of women rather than empowering them as envisaged in the 73rd Constitutional Amendment. Since decisions concerning women and their reproductive choices are often driven by their husbands, a woman may suffer electoral disqualification on account of a reproductive decision over which she has little or no control.”