Public holiday not fundamental right, time to reduce them: Bombay High Court

The court observed, 'There is no legally enforceable right that can be said to have been infringed. Nobody has a fundamental right to a public holiday'

The Bombay High Court has held that nobody can claim public holidays as fundamental right and they are a matter of government policy, Live Law reported.

A Divison Bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar rejected a petition to declare August 2 as a public holiday as it marks the liberation or Independence Day of Dadar & Nagar Haveli.

The court observed, “There is no legally enforceable right that can be said to have been infringed. Nobody has a fundamental right to a public holiday. 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.”

The petitioner argued that August 2 was given the public holiday status from 1954 to 2020 before it was discontinued on July 29, 2021.

The petition also compared August 2 to August 15 and questioned that if August 15 could be public holiday for being the national Independence Day, why not August 2.

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