Article 21 of the Indian Constitution

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution states, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to the procedure established by law.”

Indian Constitution and Article 21

The actual scope of Article 21 was covered in Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (AIR 1978 SC 597). Justice Bhagwati’s key observations in Maneka Gandhi’s case are explained briefly below:

• the term ‘personal liberty’ in Article 21 covers a variety of rights to constitute the liberty of man
• the court should expand the reach and ambit of the fundamental rights rather than attenuate their meaning and content by a process of judicial construction
• courts lay great emphasis on procedural safeguards but the procedure must satisfy the requirement of natural justice