Which one of the following statements with regard to Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India case, 1978 is not correct?

Correct — B, It was held that a law coming under Article 21 may not satisfy the requirements of Article 19. That proposition is the pre-Maneka position taken in A. K. Gopalan (1950), where the Court treated the fundamental rights as separate compartments and held that a law valid under Article 21 need not answer to Article 19. Maneka Gandhi overturned exactly that. The Court held that a law depriving a person of personal liberty must prescribe a procedure that is fair, just and reasonable, and must also survive Articles 14 and 19 — which is why option (a), stating that Articles 19 and 21 are not watertight compartments, is a correct description of the same judgment. The two statements cannot both stand, and it is this one that the judgment rejected.

• (a)It was held that Article 19 and Article 21 are not watertight compartments. — This is the holding itself. Following R. C. Cooper (1970), Maneka discarded the compartment theory and read Articles 14, 19 and 21 together — the formulation later called the golden triangle.
• (c)A fair trial eliminates the biases against the accused in the trial. — A general proposition consistent with the judgment rather than a quotation from it. Maneka's insistence that the procedure be fair, just and reasonable is the root from which the Court's later fair-trial jurisprudence grew.
• (d)The right to life under Article 21 does not include the right to die. — True as a statement of law, though settled later. Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab (1996) overruled P. Rathinam and held that Article 21 does not carry a right to die; the Court has since recognised a narrow right to die with dignity through passive euthanasia in Common Cause (2018).

Maneka Gandhi's passport was impounded under section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act, 1967, without reasons. The Court used the case to rewrite the meaning of Article 21. 'Procedure established by law' would no longer mean any procedure a legislature enacted; it had to be fair, just and reasonable, and the law had to satisfy Articles 14 and 19 as well. The three articles have been read together ever since.

The item asks which statement is not correct, and the fastest route is to notice that options (a) and (b) contradict each other. If Articles 19 and 21 are not watertight compartments, then a law under Article 21 cannot be exempt from Article 19; if a law under Article 21 may ignore Article 19, the compartments are watertight. Only one option can be the answer, and (a) is beyond dispute, so (b) has to be the false one. The derived answer in circulation marks the right-to-die statement instead, on the ground that it does not come from the 1978 judgment — but the fair-trial statement does not come from it either, so that test cannot be the one the examiner used. Since UPSC has released no key for this paper, the card publishes the reading the judgment supports and the conflict is recorded.

• Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) arose from the impounding of a passport under section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act, 1967.
• The Court read 'procedure established by law' in Article 21 as requiring a procedure that is fair, just and reasonable.
• A. K. Gopalan (1950) had held the fundamental rights to be mutually exclusive; R. C. Cooper (1970) and Maneka buried that view.
• Articles 14, 19 and 21 have been described since Maneka as the golden triangle.
• The right to die was settled much later — P. Rathinam (1994), overruled by Gian Kaur (1996), and Common Cause (2018) on passive euthanasia and living wills.

• Treating every true statement about Article 21 as a statement about the Maneka judgment.
• Missing that two of the printed options contradict each other.

A negative-stem case-law item where the false option restates the doctrine the case overruled.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which case first held that the fundamental rights are not watertight compartments, overruling the position taken in A. K. Gopalan?

  • (a)R. C. Cooper v. Union of India
  • (b)Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala
  • (c)Golaknath v. State of Punjab
  • (d)Minerva Mills v. Union of India

  Answer(a) R. C. Cooper v. Union of India (1970) — the bank nationalisation case, whose reasoning Maneka Gandhi carried into Article 21.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The requirement that a procedure under Article 21 be fair, just and reasonable was laid down in

  • (a)A. K. Gopalan (1950)
  • (b)Maneka Gandhi (1978)
  • (c)Gian Kaur (1996)
  • (d)Puttaswamy (2017)

  Answer(b) Maneka Gandhi (1978) — the case that replaced any-procedure-will-do with a test of fairness.