ARTICLE 21 of the Constitution of India provides as follows: “Protection of Life and Personal Liberty: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”
The scope of Article 21 was a bit narrow till 1950s as per the ruling of the Supreme Court in AK Gopalan vs Union of India (1950). In this case, it was ob served that “personal liberty” only means “liberty relating to or concerning the person or body of the individual”. At that time, Gopalan’s case was the leading case in respect of Article 21 of the Constitution, but post-Gopalan’s case, the scope of Article 21 has been expanded and modified gradually through different decisions of the Supreme Court and it has been held that interference with the freedom of a person at home or restriction imposed on a person while in jail would require the authority of law.
After Gopalan’s case (1950), in MaNeka Gandhi vs Union of India (1978), the Supreme Court opened up a new dimension and gave the widest possible interpretation to the word “personal liberty”. Bhagwati, J. (as he then was) observed: “The expression ‘personal liberty’ in Article 21 is of the widest amplitude and it covers a variety of rights which go to constitute the personal liberty of man and some of them have been raised to the status of distinct fundamental rights and given additional protection under Article 19”.
Bhagwati, J. (as he then was) further observed: “The attempt of the court should be to expand the reach and ambit of the Fundamental Rights rather than to attenuate their meaning and content by a process of judicial construction”.
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