DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW

2014-15
FINAL DRAFT
Basics of Case Law

“ Case Analysis of Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India”

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Mr. Shashank Shekhar Aavieral Malik

Assistant Professor (Law) 1st Semester (Roll. No. 4)

Section: A

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 Acknowledgements

First of all I would like to thank our honourable Vice-Chancellor Dr. Gurdip Singh, our
Dean(Academics) Prof Dr, C.M.Jariwala, our Head of the Department Prof. Dr. Amar Pal Singh
and our very own Asst. Prof. Mr. Shashank Shekhar for letting me research on such an
interesting topic and providing all the necessary resources required to fulfil it successfully.

I would also like to thank my seniors and my dear batch-mates for providing the necessary
mental support to complete this research paper.

Aavieral Malik

Roll No. 4

1st Semester

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 Contents

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

TABLE OF CASES ................................................................................................................. 4

PREFACE ................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

INTRODUCTION ................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

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ISSUES UNDER CONSIDERATION .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

LAW IN QUESTION .............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

ARGUMENTS ADVANCED ................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

FINAL JUDGEMENT ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS ......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

CONCLUSION ........................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................Erro
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Art. : Article

S. : Section

Hon’ble : Honourable

v. : versus

no. : number

AIR : All India Reporter

SC : Supreme Court

TABLE OF CASES

 Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India

 Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India AIR 1978 SC 597

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The court held that the right to travel abroad fell within the ambit of the right to personal liberty
under Article 21. The court also found that the government order was arbitrary and violated the
right to equality under Article 14.

In spite of its emphatic observations, the court did not pass any “formal order” in the case and
accepted the government’s assurance that Maneka Gandhi would get an adequate opportunity to
be heard. The majority upheld the impounding of Maneka Gandhi’s passport and held that her
passport should remain in the court’s custody in the meantime. Justice Beg, who was otherwise
part of the majority, did opine that the government order was “neither fair nor procedurally
proper” and deserved to be quashed by the court.

Small Case, Large Judgment?

The Supreme Court’s judgment in Maneka Gandhi has been widely critiqued as one that went
out of bounds with reference to the facts before the court. The matter concerned, on the face of it,
the impounding of an individual’s passport. The Attorney-General had undertaken that Maneka
Gandhi would be provided a post-decisional hearing. Moreover, even if the government decided
to stand by its impounding order after hearing Maneka Gandhi, it had conceded that the period of
impounding would not exceed six months from the date of its fresh order. Instead of deciding the
case on this finite ground, the court chose to consider several peripheral issues — yes, these
issues were pivotal to India’s governance, but peripheral to the case — in judgments that
together added up to over 70,000 words...

Indeed, why did the Supreme Court say more than what needed to be said? The immediate cause
of the court’s expansive, rights-based approach in Maneka Gandhi was the criticism it faced for
its decision during the Emergency in the ADM Jabalpur case. In fact, Maneka Gandhi was
followed by a series of actions undertaken by the court and its judges to distance themselves
from ADM Jabalpur — this was akin to an acknowledgement that it had “violated the
fundamental rights of a large number of people” thirty-four years after the case was decided.

And, yet, though the Supreme Court embarked on an inquiry not necessitated by the facts before
it in Maneka Gandhi, when we look at it from a result-oriented approach, the court’s
interpretation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 played a hugely beneficial role in shaping India’s
constitutional policy...

Does a law that satisfies all procedural requirements in its enactment, however arbitrary or
unreasonable, meet the test of Article 21? This is the question that the Supreme Court sought to
answer in Maneka Gandhi. By vesting in itself the power of substantive review under Article 21,
the court transformed itself from being merely a supervisor, to being a watchdog of the
Constitution. This is the seminal importance of the Maneka Gandhi decision...

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 A Brief Introduction

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Maneka Gandhi versus Union of India case was a turning point in the
interpretation of the right to life and personal liberty enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

The Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (Maneka Gandhi) case arose in the period immediately
following the end of the national Emergency in India.

Maneka Gandhi, was issued a passport in 1976 under the Passports Act. In 1977, around the
time she wished to leave India to fulfil a speaking engagement, Maneka Gandhi received a letter
stating that the Government of India had decided to impound her passport “in public interest”
under Section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act.

The government turned down her request seeking the reasons why the order had been passed,
stating that it was not “in the interest of the general public”. In reaction, she filed a writ petition
in the Supreme Court challenging the passport impounding order of the Government of India and
its subsequent refusal to provide reasons for the same...

In Maneka Gandhi, the Supreme Court departed from the straitjacketed interpretation of
fundamental rights and held that the fundamental rights form an integrated scheme under the
Constitution. The court stated:

“Articles dealing with different fundamental rights contained in Part III of the Constitution do
not represent entirely separate streams of rights which do not mingle at many points. They are all
parts of an integrated scheme in the Constitution. Their waters must mix to constitute that grand
flow of unimpeded and impartial justice... Isolation of various aspects of human freedom, for
purposes of their protection, is neither realistic nor beneficial.”

Emphasising the need to read Part III of the Constitution in a holistic manner, the Supreme Court
said that the mere fact that a law satisfied the requirements of one fundamental right did not
exempt it from the operation of other fundamental rights.

What this means is that even if a law were ostensibly associated with a particular fundamental
right and complied with its requirements, it would also have to satisfy the requirements of other
fundamental rights.

The majority on the seven-judge bench stated that any procedure established by law under
Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) would have to be “fair, just and reasonable” and
could not be “fanciful, oppressive or arbitrary”. If this standard were applied, the government’s
impounding order— neither passed without providing a hearing or furnishing any reasons to
Maneka Gandhi— failed to satisfy the mandate of Article 21.

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Some would wonder why there was so much excitement over a verdict that essentially
recognised the right of a member of India’s most influential political family to go abroad. It is
the constitutional developments after Maneka Gandhi that highlight how it was one of the cases
that truly changed India. For most jurists, it was a turning point in the Supreme Court’s
interpretation of Article 21. The court moved from a pedantic to a purposive approach in
construing the sweep of the right to life under the Constitution. The judgment became a
springboard for the evolution of the law relating to judicial preservation of human rights.

The most striking aspect of the Supreme Court’s introduction of substantive due process was that
it empowered courts to expand the limited phraseology of the right to life under the Constitution,
to include a wide range of un-enumerated rights. Derived from Article 21, these rights cover
areas such as the rights of prisoners, protection of women and children, and environmental
rights.

Excerpted with permission from Penguin Books India from 10 Judgments that Changed India
by Zia Mody; Shobhaa De Books