The Constitution of India, 1950 (“the Constitution”) is a ‘transformative’ archive in which arrangements ‘exemplifying prudent common sense and managerial detail’ remain nearby articles which point ‘to start and shape social and financial upsets inside India’. Specifically, Parts III and IV of the Constitution – the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy involve ‘the still, small voice of the Constitution, taking into account the concurrent accomplishment of ‘gigantic social and monetary change’ and the safeguarding of individual liberties. [i]
The Fundamental Rights are prevalently expressed in negative terms to disallow the State from limiting individual freedom and requiring that the State ‘refuse biased activity’. Key Rights recorded in Part III of the Constitution are enforceable against the state, as characterized in Article 12 of the Constitution of India. The State is additionally urged not to make any law which takes away or condenses the rights presented by Part III of the Constitution of India and any law made in contradiction might be void to the degree of the contravention. [ii]
To the extent Article 21 under Chapter III of the Constitution on India is concerned, it ensures all residents their central rights to life, to poise, to discourse and articulation, to training and data. Regardless of its normal terms, that is, no individual might be denied of his life or individual freedom aside from as indicated by system built up by law, it has turned into an exceptionally wide assurance of the privilege to live with ‘human dignity’ [iii], including, when deciphered in light of the Directive Principles, understood rights to the fundamental necessities of human presence, instruction, social insurance, and a solid and manageable condition.
Article 21 as the source of Substantive Rights
Article 21 of the Constitution of India read as
“Protection of Life and Personal Liberty: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”
Article 21 must be guaranteed when a man is denied of his “life” or “individual freedom” by the “State”, as characterized in Article 12. Article 21 applies to characteristic people. The privilege is accessible to each individual, subject or outsider. Along these lines, even a non-native can guarantee a direction under this article.
This Article is framed in an antagonistic shape and charges the State not to deny any individual, not really just a native, of his life or individual freedom aside from as per system set up by law.
Article 21 secures two rights:
- Right to life; and
- Right to personal liberty.
Right to Life
The privilege of life is without a doubt the most crucial of all rights. Everybody has the privilege to life, freedom and the security of an individual. Every single other right adds quality to one side and relies upon the pre-presence of life itself for their operation. As human rights can just connect to living creatures, one may anticipate that the correct will life itself to be in some sense essential, since none of the alternate rights would have any esteem or utility without it. There would have been no Fundamental Rights worth saying if Article 21 had been translated in its unique sense.
The expression “life” as specified in the Article 21 of the Constitution has been extensively deciphered by the Supreme Court. Ideal to Life does not only mean the continuation of a man’s creature presence, however, a personal satisfaction. On account of Kharak Singh v. Territory of Uttar Pradesh [iv], the Supreme Court held that, ‘By the expression “life” is implied something more than unimportant creature presence. The restraint against its hardship stretches out to every one of those appendages and resources by which life is delighted in. The arrangement similarly precludes the mutilation of the body by removal of a protective layer leg or the hauling out of an eye, or the obliteration of some other organ of the body through which the spirit speaks to the external world.’ [v]
Article 21 has a substantially more extensive importance which incorporates ideal to live with human pride, ideal to the job, ideal to wellbeing, appropriate to contamination-free air, and so forth. Ideal for life is central to our extremely presence and incorporates every one of those parts of life which go ahead to make a man’s life significant, finish and worth living. It is the main article in the Constitution which has gotten the amplest conceivable understanding. Under the shade of Article 21, a plenty of rights have discovered sanctuary, development, and food. Along these lines, the minimum essentials, the base and fundamental prerequisites which are basic and unavoidable for a man is the center idea of ideal to life.
On account of Francis Coraliev. Union Territory of Delhi [vi], the Supreme Court watched that “the privilege to life incorporates the privilege to live with human poise and all that accompanies it, to be specific the minimum essentials of life, for example, satisfactory nourishment, attire and safe house, and offices for perusing, composing, and communicating in different structures, uninhibitedly moving about, blending and mixing together with kindred people. The size and substance of the parts of this privilege would rely on the degree of monetary improvement of the nation, yet it must, in any perspective of the issue, incorporate the privilege to the essential necessities of life and furthermore the privilege to bear on such capacities and exercises to constitute the absolute minimum necessities of the human life.”
Again on account of Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration [vii], the Supreme Court watched that the “right to life” incorporated the privilege to have a solid existence in order to appreciate all resources of the human body in their prime conditions. It would even incorporate the privilege to the security of a man’s convention, culture, legacy and every one of that offers importance to a man’s life. It incorporates the privilege to live in peace, to rest in peace and the privilege to rest and wellbeing.
The extended extent of Article 21 has been clarified assist on account of Unni Krishnan v. Territory of A.P.[viii] For the situation the court gave the rundown of a portion of the rights secured under Article 21. Some of them are recorded underneath:
- Right to go abroad
- Right to privacy
- The right to education
- Right against solitary confinement
- The right against handcuffing
- Right against delayed execution
- Right to shelter
- The right to livelihood
- Right to health and medical aid
- The right against custodial death
- The right against public hanging
- Doctors assistance
Through different judgments, the Court additionally included huge numbers of the non-legitimate Directive Principles exemplified under part IV of the Constitution. Some of them are:
- Right to pollution free water and air
- Protection of under-trial
- Right of every child to a full development
- Protection of cultural heritage. [ix]
Right to Personal Liberty
The expression “personal liberty” used in Article 21 has additionally been generally translated by the Supreme Court. It doesn’t simply mean opportunity from physical limitations or flexibility from control inside limits of a jail. At the end of the day, it implies not just opportunity from capture or detainment from wrongful restriction or false detainment, yet it implies substantially more than that. The term individual freedom isn’t utilized as a part of a thin sense, however, has been utilized as a part of Article 21 as a concise term to incorporate inside it every one of those assortments of privileges of a man which go ahead to make up the individual freedom of a man.
On account of A.K. Gopalan v. Territory of Madras [x], the Supreme Court took a liberal perspective of the articulation “individual freedom”. The court held that the articulation “individual freedom” did exclude every one of that was inferred in the expression “freedom”. The court held that the articulation “individual freedom” amounted to just the freedom of physical body i.e., flexibility from capture and detainment from false detainment or wrongful confinement. [xi]
In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India [xii], the Supreme Court extended the skylines of the expression “Individual Liberty” to give it the fastest conceivable importance. The Court held:
“The articulation “individual liberty‟ in Article 21 is of the vastest plentifulness and it covers an assortment of rights which go to constitute the individual freedom of a man and some of them have been raised to the status of particular crucial rights and given extra assurance under Article 19.”
Different parts of the privilege to individual freedom are examined in the assorted features of individual freedom that take after:
Right to Privacy
Privacy can be defined as the state of being free form intrusion or disturbance in one’s private life and in affairs.
In the case of R. Sukhanya v. R. Sridhar, [xiii] the Court held that the publication of matrimonial proceedings, meant to be conducted in camera, an invasion of the right of privacy. More importantly, the Court also held that “the rightful claim of an individual to determine the extent to which he wishes to share himself with others and his control over the time, place and circumstances to communicate to others.”
In R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu[xiv], the Supreme Court has asserted that in recent times, the right to privacy has acquired constitutional Status. It is “implicit in the right to life and liberty guaranteed to the citizens” by Article 21.
Right to go abroad
In the year 1967, the court for the first time in the case of Satwant Singh v. Assistant Passport Officer, New Delhi[xv] held that right to travel abroad is contained in by the expression “personal liberty” within the meaning of Article 21. Later in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India[xvi], it was held that if a procedure established by law was required in depriving a person of his personal liberty which included the right to travel abroad, then that procedure mentioned herein should not be arbitrary, unfair or unreasonable.
Right against Illegal Detention
The Supreme Court in the case of Joginder Kumar v. State of Uttar Pradesh[xvii] laid down the guidelines governing arrest of a person during an investigation:
- An arrested person being held in custody is entitled, if he so requests, to have a friend, relative or other person told as far as is practicable that he has been arrested and where he is being detained.
- The police officer shall inform the arrested person, when he is brought to the police station, of this right.
- An entry shall be required to be made in the diary as to who was informed of the arrest.
Further in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, [xviii] the Supreme Court laid down detailed guidelines to be followed by the central and state investigating agencies in all cases of arrest and detention till legal provisions are made in that behalf as preventive measures. The court also held that any form of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, whether it occurs during interrogation, investigation or otherwise, falls within the ambit of Article 21.
Conclusion
Thus the principles of natural justice are firmly grounded in Article 21 of the Constitution of India. With the introduction of the concept of substantive and procedural due process in Article 21, all that fairness which is included in the principles of natural justice can be read into Art. 21. The sun of Article 21 would never set completely in a democratic set up like India and this article would live in all its sub-limit for eternity to serve the people of India whenever they are in any distress over any issue pertaining to their lives and personal liberties.
References-
[i] Nick Robinson, ‘Expanding Judiciaries: India and the Rise of the Good Governance Court’(2009) 8 Washington University Global Studies Law Review. Also, see Albert H. Y. Chen, ‘Pathways of Western Liberal Constitutional Development in Asia: A Comparative Study of Five Major Nations’ (2010) 8 International Journal of Constitutional Law849, 855: ‘The Indian Constitution was designed not only to establish political structures and declare fundamental rights and freedoms but also to bring about social reform.’ cited in McDonald Douglas, “The Meaning of Life: Socio-Economic Rights under Article 21of the Indian Constitution”
[ii] H. R. Khanna, ‘Making of India’s Constitution’(2nd ed, 2008) 87
[iii] CERC v Union of India AIR 1995 SC 922.
[iv] AIR 1963 SC 1295
[v] MP Jain, THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA, LexisNexis ButterworthsWadhwaNagpur, Gurgaon, 2010
[vi] AIR 1981 SC 746
[vii] AIR 1978 SC 1675
[viii] AIR 2178, 1993 SCR (1) 594
[ix] VidhanMaheshwari, “Article 21 of The Constitution of India – The Expanding Horizons”
[x] AIR 1950 SC 27
[xi] Vijay Jaiwal, “Right to Life and Personal Liberty in Indian Constitution” posted in Indian Constitution on September 3, 2013
[xii] AIR 1978 SC 597
[xiii] AIR 2008 Mad. 244
[xv] AIR 1967 SC 1836
[xvi] AIR 1978 SC 597
[xvii] AIR 1994 SC 1349
[xviii] AIR 1997 SC 610
[xix] Ipleaders
