Gaurav Kumar Mishra, BBA LLB. (Hons) & Mr Sunil Kumar, Assistant Professor of Law, School of Law, Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, Punjab, India
ABSTRACT
Threats to national security are often considered as a trump card for the governments irrespective of the fact that whether they are real or imagined. Many a times, preventive detention is used in the shield of national security to protect a legitimate action of the state completely ignoring the fact that it could also be used for a multiplicity of sins. Governments often use the potent weapon of the national security to defend their concerns in toto; leaving with courts no other option other than to cave in. The corresponding movement in India was the ADM Jabalpur case of 1976 when the most cherished and valuable fundamental rights were denied by the Supreme Court to its citizens during the emergency of 1975. The Apex Court held that those who were detained under the preventive detention legislation were barred from challenging their detention in Courts. This paper tries to examine the preventive detention laws and its proportionality in terms of Indian Constitution & constitutional morality. It also tries to explore various aspects, contours and alignment of such laws with the consistent spirit of Indian Constitution.
Keywords: Preventive Detention, Dissent, Constitutional Scheme.
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