Article 21: from 'procedure established by law' to due process and the expanding right to life
LUG-104 Constitutional Law-I, Unit III: Right to life and personal liberty (Article 21). · LLB · 75 min
Article 21 is the most litigated Article in the Constitution and the most examined in this paper: it has been asked in almost every year, usually as a 7-mark question on the Gopalan-to-Maneka Gandhi journey and the expansion that followed. The lecture explains the words of the Article, the 'procedure established by law' versus 'due process' debate, the three-stage story of A.K. Gopalan, R.C. Cooper and Maneka Gandhi, and then surveys the rights the Supreme Court has read into 'life' and 'personal liberty': dignity, livelihood, speedy trial and legal aid, prisoners' rights, education, privacy, a clean environment, the death penalty and the right to die with dignity, ending with the Emergency, ADM Jabalpur and the 44th Amendment.
Objectives
- Explain the meaning of 'life', 'personal liberty' and 'procedure established by law' and why the framers rejected 'due process'.
- Trace the change from A.K. Gopalan through R.C. Cooper to Maneka Gandhi and state the 'golden triangle' test.
- Describe, with one case each, the rights the Supreme Court has read into Article 21.
- Explain the privacy and euthanasia lines of cases up to Puttaswamy and Common Cause.
- Write a 7-mark answer on the expansion of Article 21 with the right sequence of cases.
Slides
- What Article 21 says, and the words that matter
- A.K. Gopalan (1950): the narrow beginning
- Personal liberty between Gopalan and Maneka: Kharak Singh and Satwant Singh
- R.C. Cooper (1970) and Maneka Gandhi (1978): the turning point
- Life with dignity and the right to livelihood
- Fair procedure in the criminal process: speedy trial, legal aid, prisoners
- Education: Mohini Jain, Unni Krishnan and Article 21A
- Privacy: Kharak Singh to Puttaswamy
- Death penalty and the environment
- The right to die: Rathinam, Gian Kaur, Aruna Shanbaug, Common Cause
- Emergency, ADM Jabalpur and the 44th Amendment
- How the examiner asks it
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