THE FIASCO OF OVERRULING A. K.

GOPALAN
PROFESSOR P. K. TRIPATHI

Published In Air 1990

The majority view in the case of A. K. Gopalan v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 27: 51 Cri LJ
1383 as represented in the opinions of Kania, C. J. and Patanjali Sastri, M. C. Mahajan, B. K.
Mukherjee, and S. R. Das, JJ., has received considerable drubbing especially in the opinions of
J. C. Shah, J. (as he then was), in R. C. Cooper V.Union of India, AIR 1970 SC 564 and
Bhagwati, J. (as he then was), in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 597. It is
generally understood that the abovementioned opinions of Shah, J. and Bhagwati, J. have
overruled the authority of A. K. Gopalan and it ”no longer holds the field". However, an
objective study seems to suggest that some of the views attributed to majority Judges in A. K.
Gopalan were never held by them, and Others which formed the core of these holdings cannot
truly be said to have been successfully Overruled.

An Exercise in Futility
Bhagwati, J. observed in Maneka Gandhi that in A. K. Gopalan "The observations made by
Patanjali Sastri, J., Mukherjee, J., and S. R. Das, J., seemed to place a narrow interpretation on
the words 'personal liberty' so as to confine the protection of Art. 21 to freedom of the person
against unlawful detention" 620). This with due respect is just not correct. S. R. Das, J.,
specifically referred to the rights of a free man to "eat what he likes", to "work as much as he
likes", and to "drink anything he likes" as examples of the components of the "bundle of rights
which, together with the rights mentioned in sub-clauses (a) to (e) and (g) [of clause (1) of Art.
19] make up personal liberty" (at p. 110 of AIR : at p. 1466 of Cri LJ.). His Lordship reaffirmed
the same view when he observed : "In my judgment, Art. 19 protects some of the important
attributes of personal liberty as independent rights and the expression 'personal liberty’ has been
used in Art. 21 as a compendious term including within its meaning all the varieties of rights
which go to make up the personal lioerties of men" (at p. Ill of AIR : at p. 1467 of Cri LJ).
Mukherjea, J. also regarded the right to 'enjoyment of personal liberty" to be the "freedom from
physical restraint and coercion of any sort" (at p. 93 of AIR : at p. 1423 of Cri LJ). Patanjali
Sastri, J. subscribed to what was later on characterised as the theory of carving out the
freedoms guaranteed in Art. 19 from the bundle of liberties of the individual and leave only the
remainder for Art. 21. His Lordship observed : " whatever may be the generally accepted
connotation of the expression 'personal liberty' it was used in Art. 21 in a sense which excludes
the freedoms dealt with in Art. 19"(at p. 71 of AIR : at p. 1427of Cri LJ). That of course is far
from saying, as Bhagwati, J., attributed, that the expression 'personal liberty' was confined to
freedom against unlawful detention.
And finally, Kania, C. J. whom Bhagwati, J., did not mention in this context clearly stated that
'personal liberty' includes, inter alia "the right to eat or sleep when one likes or to work or not to
work as and when one pleases and several such rights sought to be protected by the expression
"personal liberty" in Art. 21."
This much about overruling something which was never ruled by the majority in A. K.
Gopalan.
We turn now to that which was ruled in A. K. Gopalan and was supposed to be overruled in R.
C. Cooper and Maneka Gandhi, but could not really be overruled and has survived without any
damage, whatsoever. Preventive Detention
It was held in A. K. Gopalan, by the majority, that if a law of preventive detention satisfies all
the conditions laid down in article 22, a person detained under its provisions cannot challenge
the validity of the law, or of his detention on the ground that as a result of such detention he is
prevented from exercising the various freedoms enumerated in clause (1) of article 19, and the
impugned law not being a "reasonable restriction" on those freedoms is void. Here, their
lordships held, only article 22 can be invoked, and if it is satisfied, article 19 cannot be invoked
to challenge the legislation. In R. C. Cooper’s case Shah, J., held that the view of excluding
article 19 "cannot be accepted as correct" (p. 597), and that article 19 will have to be applied
even if article 22 is satisfied. In Maneka Gandhi's case, Bhagwati, J., not only approved of the
view of Shah, J. on the above mentioned question of exclusion of article 19 by the application
of article 22, but also gave an extended scope to the guarantee in article 21 and held the very
law depriving a person of his personal liberty, including a law of preventive detention must not
only be tested on the touchstone of reasonability under article 19 but 'also on the touchstone of
article 21 to ascertain whether the law lays down a procedure which is "right", just and fair"
and not "arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive". In other words it was held by Bhagwati, J., that a
law of preventive detention will not only have to satisfy the requirements of article 22, but also
those of article 19 which required reasonableness of restrictions, and of article 21 which
demanded a just and reasonable procedure.
Unfortunately, both these cases, R. C. Cooper and Maneka Gandhi, were cases involving
neither preventive detention nor punitive detention. Consequently, they offered extensive scope
for rhetoric extolling the virtues of freedom and condemning detention unhampered by the
constraints of any factual context. But when the court came to deal with actual preventive
detention cases in Haradhan Saha v. State of West Bengal, AIR 1974 SC 2154 : 1974 Cri LJ
1479 and A, K. Roy v. Union of India, AIR 1982 SC 710,: 1982 Cri LJ 340, it drew exactly the
same conclusions as were attributed to the majority in A. K. Gopalan's case.
In Haradhan Saha, which came after the R. C. Cooper case, a Constitution Bench unanimously
held that once it is found that the procedure in the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971,
satisfied the requirements of article 22, that procedure cannot be struck down under article 19
as unreasonable, or under article 21 as contrary to the principles of natural justice, or under
article 14 as discriminatory. The court observed that the principles of natural justice "in so far
as they are compatible with detention laws find place in article 22 itself', and article 19 "does
not increase the concept of reasonableness required" by article 22 in cases of preventive
detention (at p. 2159 of AIR: at p. 1485 of Cri LJ). Consequently, the court rejected the pleas
that the detenu was entitled to oral hearing, or to disclosure of evidence and information in
possession of the government or to procedure of judicial trial, as none of these were Required
by the provisions of clauses (4) to (7) of article 22.
In A. K. Roy, which came after Maneka Gandhi, and in which Bhagwati, J. concurred, the
Court, speaking through Chandrachud, C.J., confirmed and recognised Haradhan Saha as a
conclusive authority. The petitioner in A. K. Roy strenuously argued, on the basis of Maneka
that the right of being represented by a counsel though expressly denied to him by article 22(3)
(b) must nevertheless be conceded as flowing from article 19 which requires reasonableness of
restrictions, and article 21 which requires a "fair, just and reasonable procedure". However, the
court rejected the argument on the basis that the constitution itself has provided the yardstick of
reasonableness or fairness in article 22 (3) (b), and, "It would be stretching the language "of
Arts. 19 and 21a little too far to hold that what is regarded as reasonable by article 22 (3) (b)
must be regarded as unreasonable within the meaning of those articles". It should not be
difficult to see that this is the same thing as held by the majority in A. K, Gopalar's case,
namely that a law of preventive detention which satisfies the requirements of article 22 cannot
be declared unconstitutional on the ground that the detention deprives the detained person of
his freedoms guaranteed in article 19 or that the procedure laid down by the law authorising the
detention violates, the standard of reasonableness as required by article 19 or article 21.
It is thus clear that the Supreme Court has returned, full circle, to the majority view in A. K.
Gopalan’s case, and all the rhetoric about condemning that view and declaring that it "no longer
holds the field" has proved futile, and is no longer relevant. Also in the meanwhile the riddles
of constitutional interpretation that troubled the Court in A. K. Gopalan have remained
unattended.
It is submitted the reason for this fiasco has been that the real issue that came up before the
Court in A. K. Gopalan has not been patiently identified and, the solution offered to it by the
majority in that case has not been appreciated in. its proper perspective.

Majority view in A, K. Gopalan hot Rightly Appreciated

To appreciate the majority view in A. K. Gopalan, let us first be clear abdut what the majority
did not decide. It is submitted that both Shah, J. and Bhagwati, J. have wrongly attributed to the
majority in A. K. Gopalan the view that in every case where a person is detained or threatened
to be detained either punitively or preventively, all other fundamental rights are excluded, and
the validity of the detention is to be judged exclusively on the basis of article 21 or 22.
It may be noted that in several cases following A. K. Gopalan the Supreme Court did not regard
that case as authority for excluding article 19 merely because the petitioner was being
prosecuted for an offence punishable with imprisonment leading to loss of his ’personal liberty’
guaranteed under article 21. Thus in the case of Superintendent, Central Prison v. Dr. Ram
Manohar Lohia, AIR 1960 SC 633 : 1960 Cri LJ 1002, where Dr. Lohia was being prosecuted
under the U. P. Special Powers Act, 1932 for having addressed some public meetings, the
Supreme Court not only applied the touchstone of article 19 but also held that the prosecution
was bad because, it violated the petitioner’s freedom of speech and expression. Again in Kedar
Nath Singh v. State of Bihar, AIR 1962 SC 955 : 1962 (2) Cri LJ 103 prosecution under
Sections 124-A and 505 of the Indian Penal Code was challenged on the ground that these
sections violated the petitioner’s freedom of speech guaranteed in article 19. The Supreme
Court did not regard article 19 as excluded, and examined the impugned sections on the
touchstone of the guarantee of freedom of speech in that article.
Similarly, in the State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar, AIR 1952 SC 75 :1953 Cri LJ 510,
where also personal liberty was involved, the Court did not take the view that, if procedure
established by law' was followed no other fundamental right could be applicable; and the
prosecution was held to be violative of the right of equality guaranteed in article, 14 of the
Constitution. If the majority opinion in A. K. Gopalan had laid down the proposition attributed
to it in the R. C. Cooper and Maneka Gandhi cases, namely, that where personal liberty is
jeopardised by imprisonment, all that the Court can examine is whether 'procedure established
by law' as demanded in article 21 is followed, and that the law cannot be challenged for
infringement of article 19 or any other fundamental right, then the Supreme Court could not
have decided the above mentioned cases the way it did, without overruling A. K. Gopalan or
without making at least some reference to it.
Evidently, therefore, the majority in A. K. Gopalan did not decide that if a law makes speech a
crime, and if a person is prosecuted for having committed the crime of speaking ('or writing),
he cannot be permitted to challenge the law as violative of his fundamental right under article
19 and all he is entitled to is "procedure prescribed by law" as guaranteed in article 21. On the
other hand the majority in A. K. Gopalan did hold that if a law makes something like theft or
assault a crime, and if a person is prosecuted for having committed the crime of stealing or
assaulting, he cannot 'invoke article 19 claiming that if he is convicted and sentenced to
imprisonment, he will not be able to exercise his freedom of speech during the period of
serving the imprisonment
of course, A. K. Gopalan's case, AIR 1950 SC 27 : 51 Cri LJ 1383 involved preventive
detention, and not punitive detention. But the petitioner based his claim for invoking the
application of article 19 on the basis of the very fact of detention, irrespective of the treason or
grounds of detention and the; majority found that the argument so raised will apply equally to
preventive as well as puntive detention, and was not acceptable. Kania, C. J. observed:
"As the preventive detention order results in the detention of the applicant in a cell it was
"contended on his behalf that the rights specified in Art. 19 (1) (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (g) have
been infringed. It was argued that be because of his detention he cannot have a free right to
speech. Although: the argument is advanced in a case which deals with preventive detention, if
correct, it should be applicable in the case of punitive detention also to any one sentenced to a
term of imprisonment under the Penal Code. So considered the argument must clearly be
rejected. In spite of the saving Clauses (2) to (6)..; punitive detention under several sections of
the Penal Code, e.g. for theft, cheating, forgery and evenordinary assault will be illegal.... In my
opinion, such result is clearly not the outcome of the Constitution", (at pp. 34-35 of AIR at
pp.l390-f391 of Cri LJ) (Emphasis Supplied).'
On a fair reading of the above passage, can it be said that the learned Chief Justice was laying
down that wherever there is a provision for imprisonment punitive or preventive: article 19 is
invariably excluded or rendered irrelevant? It is submitted that the passage cannot be read as
laying down any such wide proposition. On the contrary, the learned Chief Justice is clearly
making the point that imprisonment whether punitive or preventive may, like the imprisonment
of a convicted thief, be totally unconnected with freedom of speech or any of the other
freedoms guaranteed in article 19, and, therefore, imprisonment cannot be the signal for the
relevance of article 19. There is every reason to assume that the learned Chief Justice was
aware of cases like sedition or defamation where the law provides for imprisonment as a
punishment for certain activities like speaking or writing, and the fact of imprisonment does not
exclude the application of article 19 or render it irrelevant. This is apparent from the fact that
the learned Chief Justice proceeds, in continuation of the passage last quoted, to state the
principle for distinguishing between laws which ought to be examined on the touchstone of
article 19 and laws which ought not to be so examined :
’’....the legislation to be examined must be directly in respect of one of the. rights mentioned in
the sub-clauses. If there is legislation directly attempting to control a citizen’s freedom of
speech or expression, or his right to assemble peaceably and without arms, etc the question
whether that legislation is saved by the relevant saving Clause of Art. 19Will arise. If, however,
the legislation is not directly in respect of any of those subjects, but as a result of the operation
of other legislation, for instance punitive or preventive detention, his right under any of these
sub-clauses is abridged the question of the application of Art. 19 does not arise. The true
approach is only to consider the directness of the legislation and not what will be the result of
the detention otherwise valid.”(at p. 35 of AIR: at p. 1391 of Cri LJ).
This is the principle of directness of legislation laid down by the learned Chief Justice
Obviously that principle is not very illuminating or helpful, but, it clearly shows the awareness
on his Lordship’s part that imprisonment, whether preventive or punitive cannot be a
determining factor for either the application or the exclusion of the scrutiny of article 19 to
judge the validity of legislation.

True Guiding Principle Suggested

Before we suggest an alternative principle it may be noted that the principle suggested by Shah,
J., in R. C. Cooper's case as an alternative namely that "it is the effect of the law and of the
action upon the right which attract the jurisdiction of the Court to grant relief', (p. 596), is of
little help. The effect of imprisonment is always the same whether it is by way of punishment
for sedition or for theft. This suggestion, it is submitted, does not even show any awareness of
the problem. Bhagwati, J. in Maneka Gandhi's case indeed exhorted that the law authorising
detention in conformity with article 21 "has to satisfy the test of applicable freedoms under
Art. 19, Clause (1)" (Emphasis Supplied, R 621). But his Lordship never even suggested the
need for any principle to determine when a freedom is applicable and when it is not. If at all,
his participation in cases like A. K. Roy 'would suggest that his Lordship regarded all the
freedoms "applicable" in all cases of detention, whether preventive or punitive.
Coming now to the true principle which ought to guide and determine the applicability of
article 19 it is submitted that the determining consideration should be the activity which the law
inhibits and punishes, and not the punishment: the validity of section 124-A of the Indian Penal
Code has to be Examined on the touchstone of article 19 (1) (a) because the section inhibits and
punishes speech and writing which is the activity that article 19 (1) (a) protects; and the validity
of S. 370 of the same should not be examined on the touchstone of Article 19 (1) (a) because
the section inhibits stealing which is not an activity protected by article 19 (1) (a). The
detention in both the cases is the same, and has the same consequence on the capacity of the
convicted person to enjoy his freedoms: yet sedition is not theft, and it attracts Article 19 (1) (a)
because of its relation to free speech, which relation theft does not claim. The same applies to
detention under a law of preventive detention: if a law authorises the detention of a person to
prevent him from speaking or writing, i.e. an activity protected by article 19 (1) (a) then the
law, or the order of detention authorised by that law will have to be examined on the touchstone
of Article 19 (1) (a); but if the law authorises the detention in order to prevent him from
committing murder, of acts of violence, or destruction of public or private property, then Article
19(1) (a) will be irrelevant, and will not be applicable.
This is not the same thing as saying that the "Object and the purpose of the law" should be the
governing consideration. The governing factor, as suggested here, should be the nature of the
law and the kind of activity it inhibits. The State declares certain acts or omissions as.
reprehensible and makes laws for their punishment or prevention, inter alia, by imprisonment.
It is these acts and omissions whose nature determines the applicability of Article 19, because it
is these acts and omissions which the citizen claims are protected by Article 19 against laws
made by the State. The nature of the punishment is not crucial: Sedition will attract Article
19(1) even if the punishment is not imprisonment but is confiscation of the printing press, or
cancellation of a government contract, or the stop page of a subsidy or grant.
Nowhere in the world is a thief or a murderer permitted to raise the question of free speech on
the plea that imprisonment on conviction will prevent him from exercising that right during his
jail term. It was due to sheer fortuity that in the very first constitutional controversy presented
before the Supreme Court the focus was put on imprisonment rather than on the reprehensible
activity to prevent which the imprisonment was ordered. It happened because petitioner in A.
K. Gopalan was forbidden by section 14 of the Preventive Detention Act, ,1950, to disclose the
grounds of the detention before any Court on pain of punishment; he was therefore in no
position to plead that the grounds on which he was detained, i.e. the activities which the State
found objectionable, were of the nature of speech and expression or of some other kind
mentioned in Clause (1) of Article 19. However, he desperately needed a footing on Article 19
so that he could question the validity of the Preventive Detention Acton the ground of
reasonableness. That was how, his counsel was forced to resort to the desperate but misleading
argument that detention, and not the activity that earned the detention, attracted the scrutiny of
Article 19. It is time, we submit, that the inquiry is put on the proper track and the focus is
withdrawn from detention where it does not belong and directed on the activities which invite
the detention, whether punitive or preventive, because, it is these activities Article 19 protects.

Turning The Constitution Upside Down

Far from indicating the principle to guide the application of Article 19 in cases involving
punitive or preventive detention, Bhagwati, J., proceeded on the assumption that Articles 21
and 19 were always applicable simultaneously as if the one were part of the other. In fact,
inspired by the "wave length", set by the opinion of Shah, J., in R. C. Cooper’s case Bhagwati,
J. set before himself the a priori goal of "expanding the reach and ambit of the fundamental
rights" (p. 622) and presented a construction according to which Articles 14, 19 and 21 are to
be completely integrated so that wherever any one of them is found to be applicable the other
two also will necessarily apply. The learned Judge reasoned that the principle of non­
arbitrariness was the same as reasonableness, and the three articles were integrated through
their shared insistence that any law affecting any aspect of liberty of the individual must satisfy
the requirement of reasonableness or non-arbitrariness.
It must be appreciated clearly that his concept of integrated and simultaneous application of
Articles 14, 19 and 21 to all cases affecting any aspect of liberty is different from, and not the
same as the doctrine that the application of one article among the fundamental rights does not
exclude others — which doctrine Bhagwati, J. attributed to the opinion of Shah, J, in the R, C,
Cooper case; nor is this concept the same as saying that when Article 21 demands a "procedure
established by law", the "law" has to be a valid law which means, simply, that the "law"
referred to in Article 21 must not violate any other fundamental right as did for instance,
Section 3 of the U. P. Special Powers Act, 1932, in Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia's case or the West
Bengal Special Courts Act, 1950, in Anwar Ali Sarkar's case. What the integrated application
concept meant and said was that where any of the three articles applied, the other two will also
apply automatically because each of them makes the identical demand, namely, the demand that
the impugned law should not be arbitrary or unreasonable. In fact, Bhagwati, J. went further
and held that Article 21 demands a reasonable procedure not so much because of itself, but
because of Article 14: In his Lordship’s words, "The principle of reasonableness, which legally
as well as philosophically, is an essential element of equality or non-arbitrariness pervades
Article 14 like a brooding omnipresence and the procedure contemplated by Article 21 must
answer the test of reasonableness in order to be in conformity with Article 14". (Emphasis
supplied, p. 624).
With due respect; it is difficult to see why Article 21 has to depend upon Article 14 rather than
upon its Own test for demanding a non-arbitrary or reasonable procedure; and, if for some
reason Article 14 is not available will Article 21 cease to demand such a procedure? Clearly, in
formulating the concept of integration of Articles 14, 19 and 21 in disregard of the individuality
and significance of the fundamental right enunciated in each of these articles the opinion of
Bhagwati, J. has sacrificed clarity arid reason to the urge for realizing the romantic goal of
"expanding the reach and ambit of the fundamental rights" which he had expressly set before
himself. Thus, for example, his Lordship did not appreciate that the arbitrariness which Article
14 inhibits is not the same as the arbitrariness that Article 19 inhibits. The arbitrariness
inhibited by Article 14 is the arbitrariness or unreasonableness in discriminating between one
person and another: if there is no discrimination there is no arbitrariness in the sense of Article
14, although there may still be arbitrariness in the sense in which it is prohibited by Article 19.
To put it differently, the arbitrariness prohibited by Article 19 concerns the intrinsic quality of
the action taken by the State, whereas that prohibited by Article 14 concerns the distributive
aspect of that action.
This can be illustrated with the help of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of State of
Rajasthan v. Nath Mai, AIR 1954 SC 307. To meet with a situation of scarcity of food grains in
the State the Government issued an order under the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers)
Act, 1946, freezing the stocks of food grains, including bajra and acquiring the freezed stocks
of bajra from the dealers at a procurement rate of nine rupees per maund, which was nearly half
the price paid by the dealers when they purchased the stock in the open market. The Court held
that clause 25 of the Rajasthan Food grains Control Order, 1949 which authorized the
Government to requisition the stocks "at the rate fixed for purposes of Government
procurement" vested an "unrestrained authority to requisition the stocks of foodgrains at an
arbitrary price", (P. 308), and held that the clause conferring such authority placed "an
unreasonable restriction" upon the respondent’s right under Article 19(1) of the Constitution
and is, therefore, to that extent void. The Court also found the same order violative of Article
31 (2) for denying compensation to the respondent for his property requisitioned by the State.
But, there is not a word about violation of the right of equality under Article 14 by this
"unrestrained power" and the "arbitrary pricing". Surely, there was "unreasonable restriction"
and there was "arbitrary" action here, but there was no "arbitrary discrimination", and therefore
there was no relevance for Article 14. The arbitrariness here concerned the intrinsic quality of
the Government's action, and not the distributive aspect of that action.
Conversely, in the State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar, (AIR 1952 SC 75 : 1953 Cri LJ
510) the intrinsic quality of the procedure prescribed for trial of offences under the West Bengal
Special Courts Act was not arbitrary or unreasonable but its distributive aspect was 'arbitrary' in
the sense that a more advantageous procedure was available under the Criminal Procedure
Code, and the Governor could arbitrarily choose who will have the procedure under the Special
Courts Act, and not the procedure under the Criminal Procedure Code. The distributive aspect
made Article 14 relevant, although in itself the procedure under the impugned legislation was
not arbitrary or unreasonable.
The romanticised and bloated version of the scope of Article 21 sponsored by Bhagwati, J. may
completely turn upside down the scheme of the constitution. Article 21 is not confined in its
application to citizens only, but extends to all persons including foreigners.
Obviously, the object of the framers was to provide to the citizen in Article 19 a 'richer measure
of freedoms like the freedom of speech, or the freedom of occupation and business than to the
aliens; conversely, the scope of the power of the State to interfere with these freedoms by
imposing restrictions as contemplated in clauses (2) to (6) of Article 19 was much narrower in
the case of citizen than in the case of a foreigner. Under Article 19 the restrictions imposed by
the State were required to satisfy the test of "reasonableness". However, if as propounded by
Bhagwati, J., the same standard of "reasonableness" can be demanded under Article 21 also
from laws regulating these freedoms, foreigners will be as free as citizens to publish
newspapers, to establish industries and to reside and settle in any part of India.
Plainly, the more exaggerated the standards demanded by Article 21 are the more advantage
will go to the foreigner, or even to the enemy alien who is not even entitled to rights guaranteed
in the first two clauses of Article 22, but is, nevertheless entitled to the right guaranteed in
Article 21.
"Reasonableness" is the most exacting standard that the constitution can demand from laws
made by the State as it inducts the utmost rigour of judicial scrutiny. That is why the majority
opinions in A. K. Gopalan abstained from importing the requirement of "reasonableness" for
the "procedure established by law" as prescribed by Article 21, although they conceded that
such procedure could not be altogether fanciful or arbitrary. So it was that Mahajan J., for
instance, avoiding the Scylla of total arbitrariness and the Charybdis of full-fledged
"reasonableness" carefully stated that Article 21 "negatives the idea of fantastic arbitrary and
oppressive forms of proceedings." (at p. 84 of AIR: at p. 144 of Cri LJ).
Inevitably, the majority opinions in A. K. Gopalan will have to be read more painstakingly,
more objectively and, perhaps, more reverentially than has been done so far.

• By: Prof. P. K. Tripathi, Former Member, Law Commission of India.

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