The Supreme Court on Monday upheld both the right of an individual against forcible vaccination and the government’s current vaccination policy to protect communitarian health, but found certain vaccine mandates imposed by State governments/Union Territories, which tend to deny access to basic welfare measures and freedom of movement to unvaccinated individuals, disproportionate.
A Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao said that such vaccine mandates wilted in the face of “emerging scientific opinion” that the risk of transmission of COVID-19 infection from unvaccinated individuals was almost on par with that from vaccinated persons.
