Fundamental Rights: Articles 14, 19, 20, 21 and 22

Principle: The freedoms in Article 19(1) of the Constitution, including the freedom of speech and expression, are guaranteed to citizens. The rights in Articles 14 and 21 are guaranteed to all persons. Facts: Yusuf, a foreign national living in India on a valid visa, is stopped by the authorities from publishing a pamphlet. He challenges the action on the sole ground that it violates his freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a).

Can Yusuf rely on Article 19(1)(a)?

Answer: A. No, because the freedoms in Article 19(1) are guaranteed only to citizens.

Article 19(1) opens with the words 'All citizens shall have the right', so a foreign national cannot found a challenge on it. He is not without protection: Articles 14 and 21 speak of 'any person' and 'no person', and he could rely on those.

Principle: Article 14 forbids class legislation but permits reasonable classification. A classification is reasonable if it is founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes those grouped together from those left out, and the differentia has a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the law. Facts: To encourage small enterprises, a State law exempts from a registration fee all businesses that employ fewer than ten workers. A company with two hundred workers challenges the law as a denial of equality.

Is the exemption consistent with Article 14?

Answer: D. Yes, because size of workforce is an intelligible basis of distinction and is rationally related to the object of encouraging small enterprises.

Both limbs of the test in the principle are met: businesses with fewer than ten workers are clearly marked off from others, and helping them is the very object of the law. Article 14 does not require identical treatment of those differently placed. Nor is the State's power unlimited; a classification without a rational basis would fail.

Principle: A law which confers on the executive an unguided and uncontrolled power to choose which persons or cases shall be subjected to a special and more onerous procedure, without laying down any policy or principle to guide the choice, violates Article 14. Facts: A State law sets up special courts with a procedure less favourable to the accused than the ordinary courts. It provides that the State Government may send to the special courts 'such cases as it may direct'. The law gives no indication of which kinds of case should be sent.

Is the law consistent with Article 14?

Answer: D. No, because it leaves the Government free to pick any case for the harsher procedure without any guiding principle.

These are in substance the facts of State of West Bengal v Anwar Ali Sarkar (1952), where the Supreme Court struck down such a provision. The defect is not the creation of special courts, which is permissible, but the absence of any standard for deciding who is sent to them.

Principle: Under Article 21, no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. The procedure must be fair, just and reasonable, and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive. Facts: A statute empowers an officer to impound any person's passport. Acting under it, an officer impounds Zoya's passport. She is given no reasons and no opportunity, before or after the order, to say why it should not have been made. The right to travel abroad is part of personal liberty.

Is the impounding of Zoya's passport consistent with Article 21?

Answer: B. No, because a procedure that takes away liberty without reasons or any opportunity to be heard is not fair, just and reasonable.

The facts follow Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978). The Supreme Court held that it is not enough for a law to prescribe some procedure; the procedure must be fair, just and reasonable, which includes an opportunity to be heard. The power to impound passports was not itself held to be invalid.

Principle: Under Article 22(2), every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within twenty-four hours of the arrest, excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate, and shall not be detained beyond that period without the authority of a magistrate. Facts: The police arrest Aman on Monday at 10 am on suspicion of theft. The magistrate's court is ten minutes from the police station. Aman is kept in the police lock-up and is first produced before the magistrate on Thursday. The provisions on preventive detention do not apply.

Has Aman's right under Article 22(2) been violated?

Answer: D. Yes, because he was not produced before the magistrate within twenty-four hours of his arrest.

The twenty-four hours ran out on Tuesday morning, and with the court ten minutes away the journey time is negligible. Detention after that needed a magistrate's order. The needs of the investigation are not an exception; the police must ask the magistrate for further custody.

Principle: Under Article 20(3), no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Facts: Bhanu is accused of forgery. During questioning in custody, police officers beat him and threaten further violence until he signs a written statement admitting the offence.

Has Article 20(3) been violated?

Answer: A. Yes, because Bhanu, an accused person, was compelled to give a statement incriminating himself.

All three elements are present: Bhanu was accused of an offence, he was compelled, and what was extracted was a statement against himself. The truth of the statement is beside the point. The protection is against compulsion, not against questioning; a voluntary statement would not offend it.

Principle: Under Article 20(2), no person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once. Facts: Chetan is prosecuted before a criminal court for cheating Deepa, is convicted, and serves the sentence of one year's imprisonment. After his release, the State files a fresh prosecution against him before a criminal court for the same act of cheating Deepa, under the same provision.

Is the second prosecution permissible?

Answer: C. No, because Chetan has already been prosecuted and punished for the same offence.

Chetan has been both prosecuted and punished for this very offence, so Article 20(2) bars a second prosecution for it. The bar concerns the same offence; it would not prevent prosecution for a different offence committed on another occasion.

Principle: Article 15(1) prohibits the State from discriminating against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Article 15(3) provides that nothing in Article 15 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children. Facts: A State Government sets up a public library reading room reserved for women, with extended evening hours and transport home. A man challenges this as discrimination on the ground of sex.

Is the measure consistent with Article 15?

Answer: D. Yes, because Article 15(3) permits the State to make special provision for women.

Article 15(3) is an express qualification of the prohibition in Article 15(1): special provision for women and children is not prevented by it. The measure falls squarely within clause (3). Article 15 does apply to State Governments, which are part of 'the State'.

Which Article of the Constitution guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court, by appropriate proceedings, for the enforcement of fundamental rights?

Answer: C. Article 32

Article 32 guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of the rights in Part III and empowers the Court to issue writs. Article 226 gives the High Courts power to issue writs, Article 136 concerns special leave to appeal, and Article 143 concerns the President's power to consult the Supreme Court.

In which case did a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court hold that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected under Article 21 and Part III of the Constitution?

Answer: D. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017)

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v Union of India, decided on 24 August 2017, nine judges unanimously held that privacy is a fundamental right. Kesavananda Bharati laid down the basic structure doctrine, Maneka Gandhi concerned fair procedure under Article 21, and Vishaka laid down guidelines against sexual harassment at the workplace.