Some of the epithets employed in India to describe a beggar are “ugly face of the nation’s capital”,1

“obstructers of smooth flow of traffic”,2 “trespassers”, and “encroachers” on public land”.3 As for the
legal definition of a beggar, it can be traced back to the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959 (the
1959 Act) which defines this as anyone “having no visible means of subsistence, and wandering about or
remaining in any public place in such condition or manner, as makes it likely that the person doing so
exists by soliciting or receiving alms”.4 Begging under the 1959 Act includes “soliciting or receiving alms
in a public place, whether or not under any pretence of singing, dancing, fortune-telling, performing or
offering any article for sale”.5

These provisions of the 1959 Act give carte blanche powers to enforcement agencies, as can be seen by
the arrests of persons without warrant found begging,6 detention in certified institutions for a period of
not less than one year,7 and detention for a period of up to ten years for second-time offenders.8
Moreover, because of arbitrary, disproportional and discriminatory enforcement mechanisms, poverty
coupled with natural disability or frail health has also been a basis for arrest under the 1959 Act.

For instance, in 1990 a shoe-polisher was arrested for presumed criminality for having “only one
hand”10 while sleeping on the streets. On another occasion, a Tamil boy by the name of Krishnan on his
first visit to New Delhi was accosted by an anti-begging squad as he looked lost and bewildered and
therefore “fitted into the definition of begging”.

In a short seven months study conducted in 2006 by the Department of Social Welfare, it discovered
that “619 persons had been apprehended as beggars”12 and “forty persons had been pulled in by the
police”.13 The Inquiry Report of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights mentioned
instances where citizens who were not beggars had still been rounded up for begging, and of the court
relying on the evidence of a single witness, the policeman who had arrested them, summarily
sentencing them to detention.14 These instances posit that “impoverished appearance”15 and
“ostensible poverty” have been the basis for illegal arrests and presumed criminality under the 1959
Act.16

The arbitrariness of anti-beggary laws has also troubled courts in developed countries such as the
United States and Canada. In the U.S. itself, anti-beggary laws are conceived as “political placebos”
which are “designed to placate the voting merchants and community members at the expense of non-
voting homeless”.17 Poverty is a human rights issue,18 and

the denial of the right to life and of livelihood and dignity for the poor is a patent violation of
fundamental rights. In addition, such laws tend to unreasonably restrict and regulate the right to
freedom of expression in the absence of any compelling state interest.

This article posits that the 1959 Act criminalizing the poor prima facie intrudes upon due process rights
and is contrary to the rule of law. It starts off with a critical discussion on the recent development in the
field and regulation of the act of begging in India in the aftermath of Ram Lakhan v State.19
Article 19(1)(a), read in conjunction with Article 21, and that any legislative or executive action
prohibiting or restricting begging must not be arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive but be in conformity with
the procedure established by law and satisfy the test of reasonableness.

Article 19(1)(a), read with Article 21 of the Constitution, and asserts that unreasonable prohibitions on
begging are unconstitutional in that they invariably deprive beggars of two fundamental rights: anti-
beggary laws are a blatant invasion of the right to freedom of expression guaranteed under Article
19(1)(a)29 and breaches the right to life and liberty of beggars under Article 21.30 Nonetheless, the
judgment suffers from the vice of patent loopholes, both procedural and substantial.