While rejecting the plea, the HC bench also held that there was “no legally enforceable fundamental right to a public holiday and whether or not to declare a particular day as a public holiday…”
Mumbai Observing that there were too many public holidays in the country and it was time to reduce them, the Bombay high court recently rejected a petition filed by a resident of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to declare August 2 as a public holiday in the union territory as it was liberated from the Portugese rule on this day, which was being observed till 2020.
While rejecting the plea, the bench also held that there was “no legally enforceable fundamental right to a public holiday and whether or not to declare a particular day as a public holiday or optional holiday is a matter of government policy.”
The division bench of justice Gautam Patel and justice Madhav Jamdar while hearing the petition of Kishnabhai Ghutia was informed by advocates Bhavesh Parmar and Devmani Shukla that the day was being observed as liberation day but was discontinued since July 29, 2021.
The advocates further argued that if August 15 was declared as a public holiday to mark the nation’s Independence Day, there is no reason why August 2 should not be declared a public holiday for Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The advocates also referred to an April 15, 2019 order of another bench of the HC pertaining to the concerned Union territory, wherein ‘Good Friday’ was listed as a restricted (optional) holiday but not a gazetted holiday.
The order had directed the administration to declare Good Friday as a gazetted holiday as the population of the union territory consisted of Christians. Though the administrator had argued that as Christmas and similar holidays are widely celebrated, it had kept the Good Friday holiday optional. However, the bench had directed the administration to declare Good Friday as a gazetted holiday in the Union territories of Diu, Daman, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
After hearing the submissions justice Patel observed, “That order stands on a different footing from the present case. That PIL was about the failure to gazette i.e. make compulsory, a public holiday rather than keep it optional. Whether or not to declare a particular day as a public holiday or an optional holiday or no holiday at all is a matter of government policy. There is no legally enforceable right that can be said to have been infringed. Nobody has a fundamental right to a public holiday.”
Commenting further on the number of public holidays being observed in the country justice Patel said, “As it is, we have far too many public holidays in this country. Perhaps the time has come to reduce, not increase the number of public holidays.”
