The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a significant judgment affirming that the right to menstrual hygiene and access to menstrual hygiene products forms an integral part of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
In doing so, the Court located menstrual health squarely within the framework of dignity, privacy, equality and education, marking an important constitutional recognition of a lived reality faced by millions of school-going girls across India.
A bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan's judgment came on a petition seeking pan-India implementation of the Union government’s policy titled Menstrual Hygiene Policy for school-going girls in government and government-aided schools.
The case raised concerns about the absence of basic menstrual hygiene infrastructure, particularly access to sanitary absorbents and gender-segregated toilets and its impact on girls’ education, health and dignity.
At the heart of the matter was the question of whether the lack of menstrual hygiene facilities in schools amounts to a violation of fundamental rights, especially the right to education and the right to live with dignity.
Answering this in the affirmative, the Court held that inaccessibility to menstrual hygiene management measures directly undermines the dignity of girl children and therefore violates Article 21.
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In a detailed judgment, the bench observed that the right to life under Article 21 is not confined to mere physical existence but includes the right to menstrual health. It held that access to safe, effective and affordable menstrual hygiene measures is essential for enabling a girl child to attain the highest possible standard of sexual and reproductive health.
The Court underlined that reproductive health is inseparable from education and information, and that the right to a healthy reproductive life necessarily embraces the right to receive education and accurate information about sexual and reproductive health.
The judgment also connected menstrual hygiene to the constitutional guarantee of equality. The Court explained that equality is not merely formal but substantive, and is expressed through the right to participate in society on equal terms.
Equality of opportunity, it noted, requires that every individual has a fair chance to acquire the skills and education necessary to access social and economic benefits. When girls are forced to miss school due to the absence of toilets, privacy or sanitary products, they are effectively denied equal participation in education.
Addressing the specific issue raised before it, the bench held that the unavailability of gender-segregated toilets and the lack of access to menstrual absorbents in schools can amount to a violation of the right to education.
The Court recognised that menstruation-related absenteeism is not a matter of choice but a consequence of systemic neglect, social stigma and infrastructural gaps. Such conditions, it held, place an unfair and unconstitutional burden on girl children.
The court placed particular emphasis on the concept of dignity, observing that dignity finds expression in conditions that allow individuals to live without humiliation, exclusion or avoidable suffering.
Denial of menstrual hygiene facilities, it said, forces girls into situations of embarrassment, discomfort and isolation, thereby eroding their dignity. The judgment also highlighted the intrinsic link between dignity and privacy, noting that privacy is a core component of a dignified life.
Importantly, the bench clarified that the right to privacy imposes both negative and positive obligations on the State. While the State must refrain from intruding into an individual’s privacy, it also has an affirmative duty to take necessary measures to protect that privacy. In the context of menstruation, this includes ensuring access to clean, safe and private spaces in schools, along with adequate menstrual hygiene products.
The bench said that the ruling was intended not only as a legal pronouncement but as a message of encouragement to girl students who hesitate to seek help in classrooms, to teachers who want to assist but lack resources, and to parents who may underestimate the consequences of silence and stigma around menstruation.
The judges expressed hope that the judgment would travel beyond courtrooms and academic commentary, and resonate with the everyday conscience of society.