Scribd
Upload
4K views

Article 21 of Indian Constitution: Right To Life

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. It states that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law. The Supreme Court has interpreted the right to life broadly to include the right to live with human dignity, the right to livelihood, the right to health, and the right to a pollution-free environment. Personal liberty refers to an individual's freedom from restrictions or encroachments on their person. Over time, the Supreme Court has expanded Article 21 to include additional rights like the right to food, clothing, environment, education and more.

Uploaded by

Yashika Sharma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
4K views

Article 21 of Indian Constitution: Right To Life

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. It states that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law. The Supreme Court has interpreted the right to life broadly to include the right to live with human dignity, the right to livelihood, the right to health, and the right to a pollution-free environment. Personal liberty refers to an individual's freedom from restrictions or encroachments on their person. Over time, the Supreme Court has expanded Article 21 to include additional rights like the right to food, clothing, environment, education and more.

Uploaded by

Yashika Sharma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Article 21 of Indian Constitution:

Right to Life

“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except


according to a procedure established by law.”

This right has been held to be the heart of the Constitution, the
most organic and progressive provision in our living constitution,
the foundation of our laws.
Article 21 can only be claimed when a person is deprived of his
“life” or “personal liberty” by the “State” as defined in Article 12.
Violation of the right by private individuals is not within the
preview of Article 21.
Meaning of Right to Life
‘Life’ in Article 21 of the Constitution is not merely the physical act of
breathing. It does not connote mere animal existence. It has a much
wider meaning which includes right to live with human dignity, right
to livelihood, right to health, right to pollution free air, etc. Right to
life is fundamental to our very existence without which we cannot
live as human being and includes all those aspects of life, which go
to make a man’s life meaningful, complete, and worth living. It is
the only article in the Constitution that has received the widest
possible interpretation. Under the canopy of Article 21 so many
rights have found shelter, growth and nourishment. Thus, the bare
necessities, minimum and basic requirements that is essential and
unavoidable for a person is the core concept of right to life.
Personal Liberty

Liberty of the person is one of the oldest concepts to be protected


by national courts. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned but by
the law of the land. The right to personal liberty in the Indian
Constitution is the right of an individual to be free from restrictions
or encroachments on his person, whether they are directly imposed
or indirectly brought about by calculated measures. The Supreme
Court has held that even lawful imprisonment does not spell
farewell to all fundamental rights. A prisoner retains all the rights
enjoyed by a free citizen except only those ‘necessarily’ lost as an
incident of imprisonment.
Expansion of Article 21 has led to many of the directive
principles being enforced as fundamental rights. On account
of this expanded interpretation, now the right to pollution
free water and air, right to food clothing, environment,
protection of cultural heritage, Right to every child to a full
development, Right of persons residing in hilly areas to have
access to roads and Right to Education (Mohini Jain v. State of
Karnataka) have all found their way into Article 21. The Article
prohibits the deprivation of the above rights except according
to a procedure established by law.

You might also like