Olga Tellis and Others v. Bombay Municipal Corporation and Others 1986 AIR(SC) 180, 1985 INDLAW SC 161

    It was popularly known as pavement dwellers case a five judge bench of the court has finally ruled that the word life in Article 21 includes the right to livelihood also. The court said:

It does not mean merely that life cannot be distinguished or taken away as, for example, by imposition or execution of death sentence, except according to the procedure established by law. This is one aspect of right to livelihood because no person can live without right to livelihood. If the right to livelihood is not treated as a part of constitutional right to life, the easiest way of depriving a person right to life is depriving him of means of livelihood. In view of the fact that Art. 39(a) and 41 require the state to secure to the citizen an adequate means of livelihood and the right to work; it would be sheer pendentary to exclude the right to livelihood from the content of the right to life.

In that case the petitioners had challenged the validity of sections 313, 313A, 314 and 497 of Bombay Municipal Corporation Act 1888 which empowered the municipal authorities to remove their huts from the pavement and public places on the ground that their removal amounted to depriving of their right to livelihood and hence violative of Art. 21. While agreeing that their right to livelihood is included in Art. 21 the court held that it can be curbed or curtailed by the following just and fair procedure.