JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, INDIA VOL. 21, 2022 Understanding the usage of the term ‘duty’ under Article 37 is of crucial significance. It is required to be construed, not in the sense in which it is used as a correlative of ‘right’88 but, in the sense of dharma (aggregate of duties) in the Indian classical tradition, wherein the notion of ‘right’ itself is defined in terms of ‘duty’ – your right is to perform your own duty. Such a comprehension of the notion of duty within the precinct of Article 37 obviates the need of construing ‘access to justice’ in respect of education in terms of enforceable right at the instance of children, as duties of the State are required to be enforced ipso facto (by the fact itself), without doing anything more. Under the traditional Hindu law, for instance, a Karta of the joint family is obligated to perform his duties from ‘within’ and not ‘without’! With a view to drive home this point, we may illustratively take the public policy measure recently adopted by a State for promoting ‘free and compulsory education’, especially for children belonging to economically weaker sections of society. The State of Haryana, for instance, has introduced a scheme, CHEERAG (CM Haryana Equal Education Relief, Assistance and Grant) Scheme, which provides for free education to economically weaker section (EWS) children in private schools from Class II to XII.89 To utmost dismay of the State, only 1,470 applications have been received against 24,987 seats reserved under the CHEERAG scheme in 381 private schools across the state. This comes to just six per cent of the total seats.90 Why has this scheme evoked such a tepid response? In this respect, we need to learn a lesson from the Indian classical tradition. We need to learn to construe the status of State under Article 45 of the Constitution as that of a Karta of the big joint family, who understands the primacy of education in building new India, and does not require any prodding from outside. Accordingly, the State should not expect EWS children ‘to apply’ by invoking their right under the special scheme. Here, the State itself is assumed, as if, to be an applicant on their behalf! Such an understanding of the usage of ‘duty’ of the State under Article 37, in our view, completely subsumes the notion of the right to ‘access to justice’ through courts. In short, non-appreciation of this basic premise has hitherto been blocking the realisation of the objective of Article 45, and thereby we are losing the primacy 88 89 90 22 This is the notion which is often invoked and used in the Indian legal system by following the western jurisprudence, which overwhelmingly advocates that no duty can exist without a corresponding right, and vice versa. See for instance, the theorisation of Salmond, who strongly believed that in the regulation of modern society every duty which is performed is invariably always in respect of a correlated right attached to it. For understanding the basic concept, see generally, the textbook, Salmond’s Jurisprudence. See, The Tribune, July 13, 2022: “Haryana’s scheme for EWS students fares poorly, only six per cent seats sought.” Under the CHEERAG scheme, the last date to apply was July 8. Not a single application was received in six districts — Rohtak, Karnal, Mahendragarh, Mewat, Palwal and Panchkula — and less than ten were received in Ambala, Jhajjar, Sirsa and Yamunanagar districts. See, ibid.