Dr.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL

LAW UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW.
2017-18

BASICS OF CASE LAW

TOPIC: MANEKA GANDHI VS UNION OF INDIA –
FINAL DRAFT

SUBMITTED TO- SUBMITTED BY-

MR. BHANU PRATAP AYUSH PRATAP SINGH
ASSISTANT PROFFESOR OF LAW, ROLL NO- 042
DR. RMLNLU SEM I

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am overwhelmed in all humbleness and gratefulness to acknowledge my depth to all those who
have helped me to put these ideas, well above the level of simplicity and into something
concrete.
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher Dr. Bhanu Pratap singh,
Assistant Professor, Law who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on
the topic "maneka Gandhi vs union of india" , which also helped me in doing a lot of Research.
I am really thankful to them.
Any attempt at any level can't be satisfactorily completed without the support and guidance of
my parents and friends.
I would like to thank my parents who helped me a lot in gathering different information,
collecting data and guiding me from time to time in making this project, despite of their busy
schedules, they gave me different ideas in making this project unique.

Thanking you

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CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. OVERVIEW OF THE CASE
3. FACTS
4. ISSUES OF THE CASE
5. RATIO DECIDENDI
6. OBITER DICTA
7. JUDGEMENT
8. OBSERVATION
9. CONCLUSION
10.BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION
Meaning and concept of right to life

1
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.’ The right to life is
undoubtedly the most fundamental of all rights. All other rights add quality to the life in question
and depend on the pre-existence of life itself for their operation. As human rights can only attach
to living beings, one might expect the right to life itself to be in some sense primary, since none
of the other rights would have any value or utility without it. There would have been no
Fundamental Rights worth mentioning if Article 21 had been interpreted in its original sense.
This Section will examine the right to life as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court of
India.”
Article 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950 provides that, “No person shall be deprived of his
life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” ‘Life’ in Article 21 of
the Constitution is not merely the physical act of breathing. It does not connote mere animal
existence or continued drudgery through life. 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

In Maneka Gandhi vs union of india, the Supreme Court gave a new dimension to Art. 21 and
held that the right to live the right to live is not merely a physical right but includes within its
ambit the right to live with human dignity.

Elaborating the same view, the Court in Francis Coralie v. Union Territory of Delhi, observed
that:

“The right to live includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it,
viz., the bare necessities of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter over the head and
facilities for reading writing and expressing oneself in diverse forms, freely moving about and
mixing and mingling with fellow human beings and must include the right to basic necessities

1 Aditya Mishra et al., Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India 25th January, 1978 | LAW MANTRA (Think Beyond Others)
Lawmantra.co.in (2017), http://lawmantra.co.in/maneka-gandhi-vs-union-of-india-25th-january-1978/ (last visited
Oct 26, 2017).

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the basic necessities of life and also the right to carry on functions and activities as constitute the
bare minimum expression of human self.”

OVERVIEW OF THE CASE

CASE:
Maneka Gandhi vs union of India

CITATION:
1978 AIR 597
1978 SCR (2) 621
1978 SCC (1) 248

DATE OF JUDGEMENT:
25/01/1978

NAME OF JUDGES
M. HAMEEDULLAH (CJ)
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V.
BHAGWATI, P.N.
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
UNTWALIA, N.L.
FAZALALI, SYED MURTAZA
KAILASAM, P.S.

PARTIES INVOLED IN THE CASE

PETITIONER:

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MANEKA GANDHI

Vs.

RESPONDENT:

UNION OF INDIA

COUNSEL
FOR APPELLANT
MADAN BHATIA
D.GOBURDHAN

FOR RESPONDENT
S.V. GUPTE (ATTORNEY GENERAL
SOLI J SARABJEE (ADDITIONAL SOL.GEN. OF INDIA)
R.N .SACHTEY AND K.N. BANHATT ADVS

CASES REFERRED

 A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras 1950 SC

 Jabalpur v. S. Shukla 1976 SC

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FACTS

 2
“On July 04, 1977 Smt. Maneka Gandhi, received a letter from a Regional Passport Officer,
Delhi intimating her to surrender the passport (No. K-869668) within seven days from the
date of receipt of the letter, as it was decided by the Government of India to impound her
passport under Section 10 (3) (c) of the Passport Act 1967 in “public interest.
 The Petitioner immediately send a letter to Regional Passport Officer asking a reason and
requesting him to provide a copy of the ‘a statement of reasons’ for making the order.
 On the reply, it was sent by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, on July
06, 1977 stating that Government has decided to impound the passport.”
o “in the interest of the general public” and
o Not to hand over her a copy of the statement of reasons.
 So, the Petitioner filled the petition.

ISSUES OF THE CASE

“In the light of Facts the issues raised in the case are as follows:

Is Section 10(3) (c) of Indian Passport Act,1967, violates of the Article 14 of the Constitution of
India

Is Section 10(3) (c) of Indian Passport Act,1967, violates of the Article 19(a) or (g) of the
Constitution of India
Is the right to go abroad by Article 19(a) or (g)of the Indian Constitution
Whether the impugned order is intra vires Section 10(3) (c) of the Indian passport act 1967 .“

2
Maneka Gandhi Case: Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India, Lawnn.com (2017), http://lawnn.com/maneka-gandhi-
case-maneka-gandhi-vs-union-india/ (last visited Oct 26, 2017).

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RATIO DECIDENDI
3
“Ratio Decidendi is commonly defined as the reasons for the judgement. It basically refers to
the material part of the judgement without which the judge would have been unable to reach to
the present conclusion of the case.

Before stating the ratio of the case and the reasons for the same, let’s first look at Section
10(3)(c) of the Passports Act 1967 – “if the passport authority deems it necessary so to do in the
interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India, friendly relations of India
with any foreign country, or in the interests of the general public.”
Following is the ratio of the case, with an analysis of the same –

1.Section 10(3)(c) of the Passport Act is violative of Article 14 of the Indian

Constitution –

Article 14 of the Constitution talks about equality before law. This provision is absolutely
against arbitrariness or vagueness of any sort as far as the actions of the executive are concerned.
Section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act confers unlimited powers on the passport authorities. Since
it is vague in its wordings, the application of such a provision has not been very clearly defined
in the Act. Thus, this leaves a lot of scope for the executive to interpret it in whichever way they
want, and hence get away with a lot of actions under the guise of varied interpretation.

The provision also leads to arbitrariness in the actions of the executive. The arbitrariness comes
from the fact that it is completely in the hands of the passport authorities to decide whether or
not, and how to proceed in a particular case. The words ‘deems it necessary’ give the passport
authorities complete freedom to act in whichever manner they want, and in whichever cases they
want. Thus there is no uniformity or reasonableness in the actions of the passport authorities, and
their actions could differ from case to case.

E.P Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu & Another,[1974] 2 SCR 348, was the judgement applied
by the Supreme Court to further justify their views. It was held in this case that Article 14 is one
of the pillars of the Indian Constitution and hence cannot be bound by a narrow and inflexible
interpretation. Article 14 should thus be given the widest interpretation possible, which also
includes reasonableness and arbitrariness of certain provisions of the legislations.

Based on these observations the Court held Section 10(3)(c) of The Passport Act violative of
Article 14 of the Constitution.

3 A Case Analysis: Of the Maneka Gandhi Case | LawFarm, LawFarm (2017), https://www.lawfarm.in/blogs/a-
case-analysis-of-the-maneka-gandhi-case (last visited Oct 26, 2017).

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 2.Violation of the Principle of Natural Justice: The Audi AlteramPartem Rule –

4
“The audialterampartem rule is one of the three principles of natural justice, and forms an
important part in defining the constitutionality and fairness of any procedure. The literal translation
of audialterampartem is “hear the other side”. In a layman’s language it basically means that both
the sides should be given the opportunity to present their case before a decision is formulated for
the case. In the present case, Maneka Gandhi was denied reasons for the impounding of her
passport, which is unfair since every person has the right to know the grounds on which any
executive action is being taken against him/her. Also, she was never given a chance to present her
own case before the authorities.”

The principle of audi alteram partem requires that before the final order for the impounding of her
passport was passed, Smt. Maneka Gandhi should have been given a chance to approach the
authorities and to bring to light her part of the story so that the order for impounding of the passport
would have been just. There is always the possibility of arriving at a one sided conclusion when
only one party has been heard and the other is denied that opportunity. Thus to keep the orders
completely objective and free from bias, it is absolutely imperative that both parties to a situation
must be given a chance to put forward their side of the story.

In the present case, during the Court proceedings itself, the passport authorities ultimately ceded
to the fact that they had been wrong in not providing Smt. Maneka Gandhi a chance to present
her case. Thus, they ultimately agreed to withhold the order and give her a chance to present her
case before the concerned authorities. But what is important to note is that the authorities had
been held wrong in the first place, and only to mitigate the blame had they accepted to let her
present her case. The final change of events prevented them from being held liable. Otherwise,
they were definitely in the wrong and even the Court had held that their action had been arbitrary
and contrary to the principles of natural justice.

3. Section 10(3)(c) not Violative of Article 19(1)(A) and Article 19(1)(g) of the
Constitution –

Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution talks about the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed
to all citizens of the country. Article 19(1)(g), on the other hand, talks about freedom to carry out
any trade and profession. Smt. Maneka Gandhi had alleged that the order to impound her passport
also violates these two rights of hers. She alleged that the freedom of speech and expression also
includes in its ambit the right to travel abroad to express oneself among the people of other nations.
Thus according to her, the freedom of speech and expression also included the right to go abroad

4
Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India | Live Law, Live Law (2017), http://www.livelaw.in/tag/maneka-gandhi-v-union-
of-india/ (last visited Oct 26, 2017).

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to mingle with people, to carry out an exchange of ideas, to be able to converse with the people of
other nations, and thus to be able to freely speak and express oneself outside India as well. Now
since she had been denied the right to travel out of India due to the impounding of her passport,
she alleged that her right to freedom of speech and expression had been violated. The same way,
she said that since she was a journalist, it was part of her profession to travel to different parts of
the world, to cover news issues. Thus by denying her the opportunity to travel abroad, the passport
authorities had violated her right of trade and profession.

It was held by the Court that even though the above mentioned contentions were correct and that
such an order would in fact amount to violations of Article 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g), there was nothing
to prove that Ms. Gandhi was scheduled to travel on an official tour at the time the impugned order
was passed and her passport was impounded. Neither was there anything to prove that she had
some earnest need to travel abroad towards realization of her right of expression under article
19(1), for eg. Public speaking, dancing, literature, art, etc.Thus this argument was rejected and the
order was not held to be violative of Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g).

However, the Court did go on to clarify that if at any point of time in the future she was denied her
passport from the government when sheneeded or wanted to travel abroad to exercise either of the
two rights under 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g) and the government denied such rights it would be
considered to be an infringement of these two fundamental rights.

OBITER DICTA OF THE CASE –

1. Freedom of Speech and Expression {Article 19(1)(a)} is not bound only to the
national territories of India –

This was a landmark opinion of the Court and one that was highly celebrated by the entire country.
The Court in the course of this case opined that the right to freedom of speech and expression, as
guaranteed to all the citizens of the country, was limitless in that it had given to the citizens a vast
number of rights irrespective of whether they were in India or abroad. The Court held that if the
Constitution makers had intended this right to be bound by the territories of the country, then they
would have expressly mentioned so as they have done for various other rights, such as the right to
settle down freely, or the right to assemble freely. However, since no such words had been added
at the end of this provision, the Court felt that it was its duty to give it the widest interpretation
possible.

Also, supporting this view was the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was
adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10th December, 1948 and most of the
fundamental rights which we find included in Part III were recognised and adopted by the United
Nations as the inalienable rights of man in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This further
supported the view of the Court in that even though Indian Courts may not have jurisdiction outside
the territory of India, but these rights as guaranteed by the Indian Constitution would still be

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maintained since they were now fortified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
was adopted by almost all the countries around the globe.

Giving this kind of an opinion was a landmark judgement and even though it may not have the
value of a precedent (since it is an obiter),Courts all over the country have adopted this view of
the Supreme Court, and used it in their judgements.

Article 21 is not to be read in isolation; all violations and procedural requirement under
Article 21 are to be tested forArticle 14 and Article 19 also.
The Supreme Court in the present case had adopted the widest possible interpretation of the right
to life and personal liberty, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. Bhagwati, J. observed:

“The expression ‘personal liberty’ in Article 21 is of widest amplitude and it covers a variety of
rights which go to constitute the personal liberty of man and some of them have raised to the
status of distinct fundamental rights and given additional protection under Article 19.”

Also, with respect to the relationship between Article 19 and Article 21, the Court held that Article
21 is controlled by Article 19, i.e., it must satisfy the requirement of Article 19. The Court
observed:“The law must therefore now be settled that Article 21 does not exclude Article 19 and
that even if there is a law prescribing a procedure for depriving a person of personal liberty, and
there is consequently no infringement of the fundamental right conferred by Article 21 such a law
in so far as it abridges or takes away any fundamental right under Article 19 would have to meet
the challenges of that Article.”Thus a law “depriving a person of ‘personal liberty’ has not only to
stand the test” of Article 21, but it must stand the test of Article 19 and Article 14 of the
Constitution as well.

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 JUDGEMENT

 5
”To the extent to which section 10(3) (c) of the Passport Act, 1967 authorities to passport
authority to impound a passport “in the interest of the general public”, it violative of Article
14 of the Constitution since it confers vague and undefined power on the passport authority;
 Section 10(3) (c) is void as conferring an arbitrary power since it does not provide for a hearing
to the holder of the passport before the passport is impounded;
 Section 10(3) (c) is volative of Article 21 of the Constitution since it does not prescribe
procedure within the meaning of that article and the procedure practiced is worst.
 Section 10(3) (c) is against Aricle 19(1) (a) and 19(1) (g) since it permits restrictions to be
imposed on the rights guaranteed by these articles under Articles 19(2) and 19(6).”

A new Doctrine of Post Decisional Theory was evolved

One of the significant interpretation in this case is the discovery of inter connections between the
three Articles- Article 14, 19 and 21. This a law which prescribes a procedure for depriving a
person of “personal liberty” has to fulfill the requirements of Articles 14 and 19 also.

It was finally held by the court that the right to travel and go outside the country is included in the
right to personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21. The Court ruled that the mere existence of
an enabling law was not enough to restrain personal liberty. Such a law must also be “just, fair and
reasonable”.

OBSERVATION
In Maneka Gandhi’s case, the meaning and content of the words ‘personal liberty’ again came up
for the consideration of the Supreme Court. In this case, the petitioner’s passport had been
impounded by the Central Government u/s 10(3)(c) of the Passport Act, 1967. Here, the Supreme
Court not only overruled A.K. Gopalan’s case but also widened the scope of words ‘personal
liberty’ considerably. Bhagwati, J. observed:

Maneka Gandhi, Legalservicesindia.com (2017), http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/article/maneka-

gandhi-717-1.html (last visited Oct 26, 2017).

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The expression ‘personal liberty’ in Article 21 is of widest amplitude and it covers a variety of
rights which go to constitute the personal liberty of man and some of them have raised to the
status of distinct fundamental rights and given additional protection under Article 19.”
With respect to the relationship between Art. 19 and Art. 21, the Court held that Art. 21 is
controlled by Art. 19, i.e., it must satisfy the requirement of Art. 19. The Court observed:
“The law must therefore now be settled that Article 21 does not exclude Article 19 and that even
if there is a law prescribing a procedure for depriving a person of personal liberty, and there is
consequently no infringement of the fundamental right conferred by Article 21 such a law in so
far as it abridges or takes away any fundamental right under Article 19 would have to meet the
challenges of that Article.”
Thus a law “depriving a person of ‘personal liberty’ has not only to stand the test” of Article 21
but it must stand the test of Art. 19 and Art. 14 of the Constitution.

CONCLUSION
The case is considered a landmark case in that it gave a new and highly varied interpretation to the
meaning of ‘life and personal liberty’ under Article 21 of the Constitution. Also, it expanded the
horizons of freedom of speech and expression to the effect that the right is no longer restricted by
the territorial boundaries of the country. In fact, it extends to almost the entire world. Thus the case
saw a high degree of judicial activism, and ushered in a new era of expanding horizons of
fundamental rights in general, and Article 21 in particular.
Hence to conclude, it may be said that Maneka Gandhi’s case, gave the term ‘personal liberty’
widest possible interpretation and gave effect to the intention of the drafters of the Constitution.
This case, while adding a whole new dimension to the concept of ‘personal liberty’, extended the
protection of Art. 14 to the personal liberty of every person and additional protection of Art. 19
to the personal liberty of every citizen.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 WEBSITE:
 Maneka Gandhi, Legalservicesindia.com (2017),
http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/article/maneka-gandhi-717-1.html (last visited Oct
26, 2017).
 A Case Analysis: Of the Maneka Gandhi Case | LawFarm, LawFarm (2017),
https://www.lawfarm.in/blogs/a-case-analysis-of-the-maneka-gandhi-case (last visited Oct 26,
2017
 Aditya Mishra et al., Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India 25th January, 1978 | LAW MANTRA (Think
Beyond Others) Lawmantra.co.in (2017), http://lawmantra.co.in/maneka-gandhi-vs-union-of-
india-25th-january-1978/ (last visited Oct 26, 2017
 Maneka Gandhi Case: Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India, Lawnn.com (2017),
http://lawnn.com/maneka-gandhi-case-maneka-gandhi-vs-union-india/ (last visited Oct 26,
2017).
 Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India | Live Law, Live Law (2017), http://www.livelaw.in/tag/maneka-
gandhi-v-union-of-india/ (last visited Oct 26, 2017).

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