Dear people who live in a home on rent,
I always thought, why isn’t there something direct to protect the people living on rent? It’s a huge community, every student and working person is facing prejudice or at least someone from their friend circle is.
Someone mentioned that Article 15 doesn’t directly cover discrimination on the basis of marital status. I did some research and found a bill –
ANTI-DISCRIMINATION AND EQUALITY BILL, 2016
By DR. SHASHI THAROOR, M.P.
So I read a few clauses in it:
S2(x) “landlord” includes, but is not limited to, any person who is a landholder, seller, lessor, proprietor, housing society, hotel, motel, innkeeper, owner, estate or letting agency, board and lodgings provider or any other person providing residential, commercial, agricultural, or industrial property, for sale, lease or rent for temporary or permanent occupation or use;
S6(1). Direct Discrimination
Every conduct, rule, regulation, policy, criterion, practice or structure shall be prima facie directly discriminatory if:
Illustration 4. – A housing society advertisement offers apartments on rent to married couples. This is prima facie direct discrimination in relation to marital status.
This is clearly defined as direct discrimination.
Provided also that a finding of direct discrimination under clause (ii) of sub-section (1) shall not be disputed merely by showing that the relevant stereotypical assumption is supported by statistics
So, if someone tells you, bachelors create nuisance and use examples. So do miscreants in jail, men and women alike, there are laws and ways to protect oneself from nuisance. It is no argument to ban an entire class of people from right to housing.
S7(1). Indirect Discrimination:
Illustration 2. – A housing society only lets apartments to persons with a Master’s degree. In the relevant geographical area, persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes are substantially less likely to have Master’s degrees compared with others. This is prima facie indirect discrimination in relation to caste.
Remember Rohith Vermula? It’s been 7 years.
15. Diversification duty
Every public authority, landlord or housing society managing over fifty residential units, secondary or tertiary educational institutions, private person performing public functions and employers with more than one hundred employees shall calculate, publish and report their Diversity Index to State Equality Commission, in a form prescribed by the Central Equality Commission.
Schedule: Exceptions
7. Restriction of membership of an association, not being an association providing any housing, education, employment or services, whose primary objective is to facilitate social interaction between members of a protected group, to persons belonging to that protected group.
As a Private Member’s Bill, however, this will not be enacted unless the government takes ownership of this Bill.
There are at least three reasons why it should do so: The Bill’s symmetric protection, its experiential understanding of discrimination as a lived reality, and its proportionate regulation of the private sector.
After this came: “The Equality Bill, 2012” It has some good measures but it removed the above definitions and examples, this bill needs public support, these illustrations are a strong support to formalizing and protecting the rental market in India.
There is hope but we need to push that hope to become something tangible.
– Admin
Read ANTI-DISCRIMINATION AND EQUALITY BILL, 2016 here: http://164.100.47.4/billstexts/lsbilltexts/asintroduced/2991.pdf
