Adya Pandey, B.A.LL.B.(Hons.), Amity University, Patna
Article 21 is present in Part III of the Constitution of India under heading Fundamental Rights and subheading Right to Freedom. This chapter is the heart of the Constitution. The feature of fundamental rights has been borrowed from the Constitution of United States of America.
It states as follows: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law”.
This Article reminds us of one of the famous clauses of the Magna Carta ‘No man shall be taken or imprisoned, disseized or outlawed, or exiled or in any way destroyed save...by the law of the land. ‘
In Munn v. Illinois [(1876)94U.S. 113 at p.142], Field, J., spoke of right of life in the following words “By the term life as here used something more is meant than mere animal existence. The inhibition against its deprivation extends to all those limbs facilities by which life is enjoyed. The provision equally prohibits the mutilation of the body by the amputation of an arm or leg, or the putting out of an eye or the destruction of any other organ of the body through which the soul communicates with the outer world”. This statement has been repeatedly quoted with approval by the Supreme Court of India in many cases such as Francis Coralie v. Union Territory of Delhi AIR 1981 SC 746, Kharak Singh V. State of UP AIR 1963 SC 1295, Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration (1978) 4 SCC 494 and Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) 3 SCC 545.
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