Article 21 of the Constitution of India After Maneka Gandhi’s Case Essay

INTRODUCTIONTo a great extent, the self-governing dally of India finds its strength in bind 21 of the fundamental fairness, for the reason that much of its judicial activism has been based on interpreting the scope of this oblige. Majority of the PIL human faces brace been filed under(a) this denomination whole. The dogmatic motor inn is this instant known as an activist court. There has been no change in the dustup determinationd in phrase 21, still at that place has been a change in the course it has been see. The scope of the member has expanded considerably post the Maneka Gandhi finale. This will be critically analysed in the complying few pages. ARTICLE 21The denomination reads- No psyche shall be peeld of his career or nearbodyal intimacy shut out according to cordial occasion formal by constabulary. Constituent manu pointuring hand Over member 21 Indias validational system was root in the traditions of British parliamentary sovereignty and effectual positivism. Thus, the emergence of a strong despotic adjudicateship challenging parliamentary legislation via meaty collect demonstrate was unlikely tending(p) this traditional historical context. further aside from the historical legacy of British rule and legal positivism, cardinal particular proposition historical factors directly influenced the Constituent Assembly to explicitly overleap a collectable process article in the section on Fundamental sets.The first was the influence of United situates Supreme judgeship legal expert Felix Frankfurter on themeal Adviser B.N. Rau, who traveled to Britain, Ireland, the United advances and Canada in 1947 to meet with jurists regarding the pening and framing of the Indian Constitution. The second factor was the dissolute and chaotic period of communal violence that gripped Northern India as a result of the partition of Muslim Pakistan from Hindu India, which led the framers of the Indian Constitution to remove the ascribable process clause from their draft constitution for the testimonial of one-on-one emancipation.1 The Constituent Assembly of India originally embroild a imputable process clause in the Fundamental Rights groomings associated with limp detainment and individual self-reliance in the initial draft version espouse and published in October of 1947.At this point, a majority of members of the Constituent Assembly favored inclusion of a collectable process clause, because it would provide procedural safeguards against detention of individuals without cause by the government. However, Rau had succeeded in qualifying the phrase indecency with the word psycheal, effectively limiting the scope of this clause as applying to individual liberties, and not property skillfuls. After this draft version was published, Rau embarked upon a multi-nation arouse to the United States, Canada, and Ireland to meet with jurists, constitutive(a) scholars, and opposite dem esnesmen.In the United States, Rau met with American Supreme approach arbitrator Felix Frankfurter, a student of Harvard jurisprudence prof James Bradley Thayer, whose writings about the pitfalls of receivable process as weaken the democratic process had already impressed Rau prior to the visit. In his get together with Rau, Frankfurter indicated that he believed that the power of judicial go off implied in the due process clause was both undemocratic and burdensome to the judiciary, because it empowered resolve to invalidate legislation enacted by democratic majorities.2 Frankfurter had a lasting impression on Rau, who upon his return to India, became a forceful counselor-at-law for removing the due process clause, ultimately convincing the Drafting Committee to see the language of draft expression 15 (now article 21) in January 1948. In these meetings Rau app arntly was able to convince Ayyar, the crucial swing vote on the committee, of the potential pitfalls associated with substantive interpretation of due process, which Frankfurter had discussed extensively with Rau. Ayyar, in ultimately upholding the new position on the floor of the Assembly in December 1948, supported removing the due process clause on the evidence that substantive due process could impede social legislation.With the switch in Ayyars vote, the Drafting Committee endorsed Raus new preferred language-replacing the due process clause with the phrase according to the appendage naturalized by law, which was apparently borrowed from the Japanese Constitution.3 Protection of Life and Personal LibertyGopalans CaseImmediately later on the Constitution became effective, the motion of interpretation of the row emotional state and individualised emancipation arose before the court in the slip A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras.4 In this gaffe, the Petitioner had been detained under the prophylactic custody bring, 1950. The suer challenged the hardship of his detention on the ground that it was violative of his Right to exemption of movement under condition 19(1)(d), which is the very essence of someoneal indecorousness guaranteed by term 21 of the Constitution.He argued that (i) the words ad hominem indecorousness embroil the emancipation of movement besides and therefore the Pr leveltive clutches Act, 1950 essentialiness(prenominal) in addition satisfy the requirements of Article 19(5). (ii) It was further argued that Article 21 and Article 19 should be read together as Article 19 move out the substantive secures while Article 21 provided procedural repairs. (iii) It was to a fault argued that the words procedure established by law actually meant due process of law from the American Constitution which includes principles of born(p) umpire and the impugned law does not satisfy that requirement.Thus the main question was whether Article 21 envisaged some(prenominal) procedure dictated down by a law enacted by a legislature, or wheth er the procedure should be just, fair and presumable. On behalf of Gopalan, an argument was do to persuade the Supreme move to hold that the courts could adjudicate upon the rationality of the Preventive Detention Act, or for that matter, any law depriving a person of his personal independence. Majority Decision in GopalanThe Supreme greet ruled by majority that the word law in Article 21 could not be read as meaning rules of natural justice. These rules were vague and indefinite and the Constitution could not be read as place down a vague standard. The appeal further see the term law as State fool law and rejected the plea that the term law in Article 21 meant jus naturale or principles of natural justice. evaluator Fazl Alis Dissenting suppositionJusticle Fazl Ali in his dissenting judgment observed that hitch detention is a direct infringement of the right guaranteed in Art. 19 (1) (d), even if a narrow construction is placed on the said sub-clause, and a lawrelating to preventive detention is therefore down to such limited judicial re berth as is permitted by Art. 19 (5). There is nothing revolutionary in the view that procedure established by law mustiness include the four principles of elementary justice which inhere in and are at the root of all civilized systems of law, and which have been stated by the American Courts and jurists as consisting in (1) notice, (2) opportunity to be heard, (3) impartial tribunal and (4) keen course of procedure.These four principles are really different flavors of the same right, namely, the right to be heard before one is condemned. Hence the words procedure established by law , whatever its exact meaning be, must necessarily include the principle that no person shall be condemned without auditory modality by an impartial tribunal. Relationship among Articles 21, 22 and 19An attempt was make in Gopalan to establish a link between these cardinal Articles. The be purpose was to persuade the Court to ad judge the reasonableness of the Preventive Detention Act. It was therefore argued that when a person was detained, his several rights under Article 19 were affected and thus, the reasonableness of the law, and the procedure contained therein (regarding reasonable parturiencys), should be justiciable with rootage to Arts. 19(2) to (6). Rejecting the argument, the Court pointed out that the word personal self-sufficiency under Article 21 in itself had a comprehensive content and ordinarily, if left alone, would include not only freedom from arrest or detention, but overly various freedoms guaranteed by Art. 19.However, reading Articles 19 and 21 together , Article 19 must be held to deal with a few specific freedoms mentioned therein and not with freedom from detention whether punitive or preventive. Similarly, Art. 21 should be held as excluding the freedoms dealt with in Article 19. The Court ruled that Arts. 20 and 22 constituted a comprehensive code and embodied the built-in constitutional aegis in relative to animateness and personal liberty and was not controlled by Article 19.Thus, a law depriving personal liberty had to conform with Arts. 20 and 22 and not with Art. 19, which covered a disjoint and distinct ground. Article 19 could be invoked only by a freeman and not one under arrest. Further, Article 19 could be invoked only when a law directly attempted to control a right mentioned under it. Thus, a law directly controlling a citizens right to freedom of speech and view could be tried under the exception given under Art. 19(2) and a law that does not directly control the fundamental freedoms under Article 19, could not be tested under the clauses (2) to (6) of Article 19. This judicial rise meant that a preventive detention law would be valid, and be indoors the terms of Article 21, so retentive as it conformed to Article 22. Due Process of lawfulnessThe V Amendment of the US Constitution lays down inter alia that no person shall be dep rived of his life, liberty or property, without due process of law. The use of the word due in this clause is interpreted to mean just, proper or reasonable according to judicial review. The courts can chat whether a law affecting a persons life, liberty or property is reasonable or not. The court may throw a law invalid if it does not accord with its notions of what is just, fair and reasonable. Thus, this clause known as the due process clause has been the most portentous single source of judicial review in the US.It was contended in Gopalan that the smell procedure established by law in Art. 21 was similar with the American concept of procedural due process, and therefore, the reasonableness of the Preventive Detention Act, or for that matter, of any law affecting a persons life or personal liberty, should comply with the principles of natural justice. The Supreme Court rejected this contention giving several reasons i) The word due was absent from Article 21.ii) The fact th at the words due process were dropped from draft Article 15 ( read Article 21), signified the intention of the Constituent Assembly, that was to eliminate the uncertainty surrounding the due process concept in the USA. iii) The American doctrine generated the countervailing but complicated doctrine of police power to re rigorous the oscilloscope of due process, i.e., the doctrine of governmental power to regulate hugger-mugger rights in usual spare-time activity. If the doctrine of due process was imported into India, because the doctrine of police power might also have to be imported, and which would make things very complicated. The ruling thus meant that to deprive a person of his life or personal liberty- i) There must be a lawii) It should lay down a procedureiii) The executive should follow this procedure while depriving a person of his life or personal liberty. CriticismGopalan was characterized as the high-water mark of legal positivism. Courts approach was very static , mechanical, purely literal and was coloured by the positivist or imperative theory of law, which studies the law as it is. Article 21 was interpreted by the majority to mean that Art. 21 constituted a restriction only on the executive which could not act without law and that it was not applicable against legislative power, which could make any law to impose restraints on personal liberty, however arbitrary they may be.GOPALAN TO MANEKA 1950-1977Gopalan held the field for almost leash decades. It can be observed during this period from the court finiss that the two major points settled in the case that is, firstly that Articles 19, 21 and 22 are mutually exclusive and independent of each other, and secondly that Article 19 was not to apply to a law affecting personal liberty to which Article 21 would apply got diluted to a great extent until finally in Maneka Gandhis case this position was reversed. The decisions immediately proceeding Gopalans case were decided on the same ta il.For example, in Ram Singh v. Delhi5, where a person was detained under the Preventive Detention Act for making speeches detrimental to the maintenance of public suppose, at a time when public lay was not contained under Article 19(2), the Supreme Court refused to assess the rigor of preventive detention under Article 22 with reference to Article 19(1)(a) read with Article 19(2) stating that even if a right under Art. 19(1)(a) was abridged, the validity of the preventive detention order could not be considered with reference to Art. 19(2) because of the Gopalan decision that legislation authorizing deprivation of personal liberty did not fall under Art. 19 and its validity was not to be judged by the criteria in Art. 19.The startle of the new trend can be found in RC cooper v. Union of India6, where Article 31(2) which had been amended to dilute the protection to property, the Court established a link between Article 19(1)(f) (right to property) and Article 31(2). still the Draconian Gopalan ruling found its way back and reached the lowest point in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla7, remembered as the black day in Indian Constitutional history.In this case the political dissenters of the Indira Gandhi government were arrested and Shivkant Shukla contended that this was in violation of their right to life and personal liberty and so the writ of habeas corpus should be be intimated. Court held that during the period of soupcon, a person could be detained and his right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 could be suspended, and such falling out could not be challenged and the writ of habeas corpus could not be issued during the emergency. This case showed that Article 21 could not play any role in providing any protection against any harsh law seeking to deprive a person of his life or liberty. It is the dissenting judgment of Fazl Ali J that was subsequently applied in the decision in Maneka Gandhis case and the cases after that, regarding th e right to life and personal liberty. MANEKA GANDHIS CASEIn Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India8 and ever since, the Supreme Court has shown greater sensitivity to the protection of personal liberty. The court has reinterpreted Article 21 and overruled its Gopalan decision and which, in the words of MP Jain, can be regarded as a highly yeasty judicial pronouncement on the part of the Supreme Court. In this case, Maneka Gandhis passport was impounded by the Central Government under the Passport Act in the interest of the general public, as was provided under S. 103(c) of the Passport Act. This was challenged on the ground of organism arbitrary to Article 21 and also because this was through with(p) without affording her a chance to be heard.The Court observed that as the right to travel a tolerant falls under Article 21, principles of natural justice must be observed and the right of hearing should be given, even though not expressly provided for under the statute. Some of the main pro positions laid down by the court in this case are as follows 1. The court reiterated the proposition that Articles 14, 19 and 21 are inter-related and not mutually exclusive.This nitty-gritty that a law prescribing a procedure to deprive a person of their personal liberty, should conform to the provisions under Article 19. Moreover, the procedure established by law under Article 21 must meet the requirements of Article 14. According to K. Iyer, J, no Article in the Constitution pertaining to a Fundamental Right is an island in itself. Just as a man is not dissectible into separate limbs, cardinal rights in an organic constitution have a synthesis. present, the dissenting judgment of Justice Fazl Ali in Gopalans case was followed.2. The court emphasized that the reflection personal liberty was of the widest bountifulness covering a variety of rights which go to constitute the personal liberty of man. Some of these attributes have been raised to the status of distinct fundamental rights and given additional protection underArticle 19.3. The most hearty aspect of Manekas decision is the reinterpretation by the court of the expression procedure established by law used in Article 21. It now means that the procedure must satisfy certain requisites in the sense of being fair and reasonable. The procedure cannot be arbitrary, unfair or unreasonable. The reasonableness must be projected in the procedure contemplated by Article 21. preserve OF MANEKA GANDHIS DECISIONArticle 21 which had lain dormant for nearly three decades was brought to life by the Maneka Gandhi decision. Since then Article 21 has been on its way to emerge as the Indian version of the American concept of due process. It has become the source of many substantive rights and procedural safeguards to the people. Some of the broad fields of this impact will be discussed as below 1. translation of the Word LifeIn Francis Coralie9 the Supreme Court, following the principle laid down in Maneka Gandhis c ase, has interpreted the meaning of life as has been interpreted by the US Supreme Court in Munn v. Illinois10, and held that the expression life under Article 21 does not connote exactly physical or animal existence but embraces something more.As deep as 2006, the Supreme Court has observed that Article 21 embraces within its sweep not only physical existence but also the quality of life. These cases only reflect a part of the scope and ambit of the word life under Article 21, which has been extended widely by the Supreme Court over the years proceeding Maneka. There have been a number of areas in which the Supreme Court has related some of the guiding Principles of State Policies to the word life under Article 21 and made it enforceable as a fundamental right. A chaste example of this is the large number of milieu related cases filed by MC Mehta.2. Personal LibertyIt does not mean merely the liberty of body, i.e., freedom from physical restraint or freedom from travail within the boundary of a prison. The expression personal liberty is not used in a narrow sense but as a terse term to include within it all those variety of rights of a person which go to make personal liberty of a man.To begin with, the expression personal liberty in Art. 21 was interpreted so as to exclude the rights mentioned under Article 19. The view was expressed in Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh11 that while Art. 19(1) dealt with particular species of that freedom, personal liberty in Art. 21 would pile in the residue. This view was followed in Gopalans case as swell up. But the minority view expressed by Justice Subba Rao adopted a much wider concept of personal liberty. He differed from the majority view that Art. 21 excluded what was guaranteed by Art. 19. He pleaded for an overlapping approach of Arts. 21 and 19. In a recent judgment of 2009, Suchita Srivastava v. Chandigarh Administration12, the Supreme Court asserted the strict boundaries of personal liberty but t hat such liberty must also accommodate public interest. A womans right to make reproductive choice has been held to be a dimension of personal liberty within the meaning of Art. 21.3. LawOrdinarily, the word law in Article 21 denotes an enacted law, i.e., a law made by the Legislature. But in AK Roy v. Union of India13, the question was whether an ordinance in the context of National aegis Ordinance, 1980, promulgated by the President to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and connected matters, a law? The petitioner argued that since this was made by an executive it was not law and could not, thus, deprive a person of their personal liberty. The Supreme Court held that an ordinance passed by an executive is well within the meaning of law and must therefore, also be subject to Fundamental Rights, just like an Act of the Legislature.4. ProcedureAfter Maneka Gandhi, it is now established that the procedure for purposes of Art. 21 has to be reasonable, fair and just. The Supreme Court has reasserted in Kartar Singh v. State of Punjab14 that the procedure contemplated by Art. 21 is that it must be right, just and fair and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive. In re The Special Courts Bill, 1978, the Special Courts Bill proposed that a additional court would be constituted to try certain persons holding high political positions during the emergency of 1975-1977. The special Court was to be presided over by a seated or retired Judge of a High Court, to be appointed by the Central Government in consultation with the Chief Justice of India.The accuse could appeal to the Supreme Court against the verdict of the special Court. For the procedure to be just, fair and reasonable, the Court suggested certain modifications There should be a provision for transferring a case from one special court to another so as to avoid the possibility of a attempt where a judge may be biased against the incriminate Only a posing High Court Judge ought to be appointed, for the retired Judge would hold the office as a Judge of the special court during the recreation of the government, and the pleasure doctrine was subversive of judicial independence. Instead of mere consultation, the Chief Justices concurrence should be there, which would inspire confidence not only of the accused but also of the entire community in the special Court. CRIMINAL JUSTICE AFTER MANEKAArrestIn Joginder Kumar v. State of Uttar Pradesh15, the Supreme Court has observed that an arrest can cause incalculable injure to a persons reputation and self-esteem. Arrest should be made not merely on suspicion but only after a reasonable satisfaction reached after some investigation as to the genuineness and bona fides of the complaint and a reasonable belief to the persons complicity and even as to the need to effect arrest. prompt TrialSpeedy trial has not been mentioned as a fundamental right in the Constitution. Yet the Court has declared this as a fundamental right in Hussai nara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar (I).16 In this case, the undertrials were in prison for a long period of time, awaiting their trials. Bhagwati, J. held that although, unlike the American Constitution nimble trial is not specifically enumerated as a fundamental right, it is implicit in the broad sweep and content of Article 21 as interpreted in Maneka Gandhis case.This position was reiterated in Hussainara Khatoon(No. 2) and Hussainara Khatoon(No. 3). In a significant judgment in Abdul Rehman Antulay v. RS Nayak17, the Supreme Court has laid down guidelines for the prompt trial of an accused i) Fair, just and reasonable procedure implicit in Article 21 of the Constitution creates a right in the accused to be tried speedily. Right to speedy trial is the right of the accused. The fact that a speedy trial is also in public interest or that it serves the societal interest also, does not make it any-the-less the right of the accused. ii) Right to Speedy Trial flowing from Article 21 encompasses all the stages, namely the stage of investigation, inquiry, trial, appeal, revision and retrial. That is how, this Court has understood this right and there is no reason to take a restricted view. iii)The concerns underlying the Right to speedy trial from the point of view of the accused are (a) the period of jug and pre-conviction detention should be as short as possible. In other words, the accused should not be subjected to unnecessary or unduly long incarceration prior to his conviction (b) the worry, anxiety, expense and disturbance to his vocation and peace, resulting from an unduly prolonged investigation, inquiry or trial should be minimal and (c) unwarranted delay may well result in impairment of the power of the accused to defend himself, whether on account of death, disappearance or non-availability of witnesses or otherwise. In Sunil Batra (II) v. Delhi Administration18, it was held that the practice of bounding undertrials with convicts in jai ls breaked the test of reasonableness in Art. 19 and fairness in Art. 21. Prison AdministrationIn Sunil Batra (I) v. Delhi Administration19, the important question before the court was whether solitary confinement oblige upon prisoners who were under sentence of death, was violative of Articles 14, 19, 20 and 21. It was held that under Sections 73 and 74 of the IPC, solitary confinement is a substantive punishment, which can be impose by a court of law, and it cannot be left within the liking of prison authorities. It further observed that if by imposing solitary confinement there is total deprivation of camaraderie amongst co-prisoners, comingling and talking and being talked to, it would offend Article 21 of the Constitution.The liberty to move, mix mingle, talk, share company with co-prisoners if advantageously curtailed, would be violative of Article 21 unless curtailment has the backing of law. Here we see the high regard that the Supreme Court gives to human life and pers onal liberty, notwithstanding a persons jail sentence. In Prem Shankarv. Delhi Administration20, the Supreme Court has held that handcuffing should be resorted to only when there is clear and present danger of escape. Even when in extreme cases, handcuffing is to be put on the prisoner, the escorting authority must record simultaneously the reasons for doing so, otherwise the procedure would be unfair and bad in law. This is implicit in Article 21 which insists upon fairness, reasonableness and justice in the procedure for deprivation of life and liberty. effective AidIn Hussainara21, the Supreme Court has observed that it is an essential fragment of reasonable, fair and just procedure to a prisoner who is to seek his expiration through the courts process that he should have legal services available to him. Providing free legal service to the poor and the impoverished is an essential element of any reasonable, fair and just procedure. In Suk Das22, the Court quashed the convicti on of the appellant because the accused remained unrepresented by a lawyer and so the trial became vitiated on account of a fatal constitutional infirmity. The court held that free legal assistance at the cost of the State is a Fundamental Right of a person accused of an disrespect and this requirement is implicit in the requirement of a fair, just and reasonable procedure prescribed by Article 21. Public Interest litigationOne of the most effective instruments evolved by the Supreme Court for attaining social justice is Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Any person with a sufficient interest and acting bona fide can file a PIL in the Supreme Court under Art. 32 or Art. 226. If there is a violation of any fundamental right or legal duties and there is legal injury to a person or a break up of persons who are unable to approach the court by ignorance, poverty or by any disability, social or economic, any member of the public can make an application for an appropriate direction or o rder or writ before the High Court under Article 226 and before the Supreme Court under Article 32 for redressal. This was the affectionateness of the principle laid down in SP Gupta v.Union of India23, in which the Court has given considerable relaxation to the doctrine of locus standi. PILs have vie an important role in the fields of prison reforms, gender justice, environment protection, child rights, education, wherein the court has constantly made an attempt to uphold the grade of a dignified human life, which is not merely confined to chafe to food, shelter and clothing, but goes much beyond. For instance, in Vishakha v. State of Rajasthan24, an incident of baby was held to be violative of not only the right to gender par under Art. 14, but also of the right to life under Article 21.The Supreme Court has laid down specific guidelines as to what constitutes internal harassment at workplace, placing the responsibility on the employer to ensure the safety of their employee s, also making it mandatory for all public offices to have a Womens Cell, where the women employees could take their grievances. These guidelines can also be found in the wrong Law Amendment Act 2013. In MC Mehta v. Union of India25, the Supreme Court has developed the concept of absolute liability regarding the payment of compensation by an enterprise engaged in dangerous and hazardous activities. The Supreme Court has also exercised epistolary jurisdiction, wherein a letter has been treated as a petition before the court.In Labourers Working on Salal hydroelectric Project v. State of Jammu and Kashmir26, litigation was started on the basis of a letter addressed by the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights to Mr. Justice D.A. Desai enclosing a copy of the news item which appeared in the issue of Indian Express pointing out that a large number of workmen on the job(p) on the Salal Hydro Electric Project were denied the benefit of various ride laws and were subjected to exploitation by the contractors to whom different portions of the work were entrusted by the Central Government. In all of these cases, and a number of others, a reflection of Manekas decision can be found, wherein the Court has tried to uphold the sanctity of a dignified human life.CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF MANEKAS DECISIONThe winning of wide interpretation that has been given to Article 21 post Maneka, has not been given to any other provision. Article 21 read with Articles 32 and 226, has become the most important weapon of judicial activism. By relating Directive Principles of State Policy with Fundamental Rights, court is granting remedies on an ever change magnitude scale. But it must be remembered that Directive Principles are non-justiciable in constitution and cannot be enforced. Yet, the Supreme Court has gone to great lengths to enforce these by relating them to right to life. But balancing of conflicting interests is an important function of law. affaire of law issocial engineering. This has to be performed by both, the Legislator as well as the Judiciary.Justice Cardozo also says that the court can evolve a process for dealing with the social ills. Thus, where legislators fail to balance the interests, it is the Court which must do it. The court will be criticized for judicial over-reach, that is, for undertaking the power of the legislator and laying down a law, as it happened in Vishakha v. State of Rajasthan. But it must be realized that where the Legislators fail, the court has to step in. The gaps need to be filled. Thus, from the perspective of Roscoe Pounds social engineering theory, which is very relevant in the present scenario, courts actions cannot be termed as judicial overreach. determinationThus, the decision of the Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhis case became the basis of the courts decisions in subsequent cases pertaining to not only Article 21 expressly, but wherever the court found a relation between life and another aspect of it. The Court developed a theory of inter-relationship of rights to hold that governmental action which curtailed either of these rights should meet the designated limen for restraints on all of them. In this manner, the Courts incorporated the guarantee of substantive due process into the language of Article21. This was followed by a series of decisions, where the conceptions of life and personal liberty were interpreted liberally to include rights which had not been expressly enumerated in Part III.27 The width of Article 21 will keep expanding as long as our Supreme Court upholds its title of the activist court, and intervenes dutifully to preserve the fundamental rights of the people. The Court has, thus, played the role of a social engineer, constantly making an effort to balance the conflicting interests of the state with those of the society and the individuals.REFERENCES1. Indian Constitutional Law, M.P. Jain, Sixth Edition (2013). 2. Constitutional Law of India, J.N. Pandey, Forty Thir d Edition (2006).