SC gives new meaning to right to life: Dhananjay Mahapatra

November 17, 2008: The Times of India

Post-1980, the Supreme Court has virtually been on an overdrive to maintain the sanctity of right to life guaranteed to all — citizens and foreigners — under Article 21 of the Constitution.

If in 1978, in Maneka Gandhi case, it ruled that the expression ‘‘life’’ did not mean mere animal existence but with dignity, it added another legal leaf in 2008 in Deepak Bajaj case, when it said right to life encompassed a person’s reputation as well.

The ground reality in India is somewhat worrisome, despite the thunderous applause the apex court received from eminent jurists for breathing new meaning into Article 21, which simply read: ‘‘No person shall be deprived of his life and personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.’’

The situation must have been indeed grave to warrant the Supreme Court, from time to time, to breathe new life into these lifeless words. For, it is the same Supreme Court, which in A K Gopalan case in 1950, had taken a very conservative view to rule that right to life extended to only as much as allowed by Parliament.

Confining this archaic interpretation of ‘right to life’ to the judicial museum, the apex court has marched forward infusing hope among victims of excesses to demand a better deal from the government and law enforcing agencies.

More than 28 years after the A K Gopalan case, the Supreme Court gave a whole new expansive meaning to ‘right to life’ in the Maneka Gandhi case. It had then said: ‘‘The expression ‘life’ in Article 21 does not connote merely a physical or animal existence. Right to life includes right to life with human dignity.’’

This new meaning of Article 21 helped the court in subsequent years to give relief to prisoners. It asked the government to clean up Ganga and Yamuna as it read right to clean drinking water a part of right to life. It banned child labour, for it found that this stunted right to life. It ordered closure of polluting industries as it saw the noxious fumes stifling citizen’s right to clean air and environment, which again was included within the ambit of right to life.

Constitutional expert K K Venugopal aptly summarized this in one of his articles: ‘‘A whole new catena of rights was read into Article 21, which embodies the right to life and liberty. These, in various decisions, have been held to include the right to legal aid, right to go abroad, right to reputation, right to shelter, right to privacy, right against sexual harassment of women, right to education and right to clean and healthy environment.’’ The recent decision by Justices Altamas Kabir and Markandey Katju, in Deepak Bajaj vs State of Maharashtra, saw a reiteration of the earlier ruling of the apex court that reputation of a person was part and parcel of his right to life.

This reiteration was necessary in the present scenario where suspicion has become the driving force for the police to pick up and detain individuals in utter violation of their right to life, dignity, and reputation included.

Justice Katju, writing the judgment for the bench, aptly quotes celebrated British Judge Lord Denning’s 1970 statement in a famous judgment: ‘‘A man’s liberty is regarded highly by the law of England that it is not to be hindered or prevented except on the surest grounds.’’

The message from the quote — be sure about the involvement of a person in a crime before arresting him — is basically for the police, which is facing a tough time given the spate of bomb blasts coupled with the demand from citizens for instant results in its investigations.

This ruling was necessary in the present scenario where suspicion has become the driving force for the police to pick up and detain individuals.

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