ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the status of the right to health within India's free market economy. It describes the meaning of the right to health and then discusses the position of the right in India. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the right to health as encompassing the physical, mental and social conditions of health. The Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (CSECR) gave the following explanation of the right to health in its General Comment No. 14: the freedom dimension of the right to health includes questions of sexual and reproductive health, the right to be free from interference, such as non-consensual medical treatment. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) had explicitly recognised the significance of imposing conditions on the state to protect health. The innovativeness of the judiciary has also initiated a debate on the prioritisation of budgetary allocation in relation to the government's socio-economic policies.
