Which among the following deals with Habeas Corpus?

Correct — B, Additional District Magistrate, Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla (1976). This is the judgment universally known as the Habeas Corpus case. During the Emergency a Presidential Order under Article 359 suspended the right to move any court for the enforcement of Articles 14, 21 and 22, and several High Courts nevertheless entertained habeas corpus petitions from people held under preventive detention. The Supreme Court, by four to one, held that they could not — that so long as the Order stood, a detenu had no locus to ask any court whether his detention was even lawful. Justice H. R. Khanna alone dissented, and the dissent cost him the office of Chief Justice. The other three options are landmark judgments on entirely different questions.

• (a)State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raj Narain and Ors. (1975) — The Raj Narain matter was an election case, and it is remembered for the challenge to the Prime Minister's election and for the Court's observations on official secrecy and the citizen's right to know — not for the writ of habeas corpus.
• (c)Mrs. Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) — Maneka Gandhi concerned the impounding of a passport and produced the rule that a procedure established by law under Article 21 must itself be fair, just and reasonable. It is about the quality of procedure, not about a detenu's access to the writ.
• (d)Nandini Satpathy v. P.L. Dani (1978) — Nandini Satpathy is an Article 20(3) case on the right against self-incrimination, holding that the protection reaches back to police questioning and is not confined to the trial.

Habeas corpus, literally 'you may have the body', is the writ by which a court orders whoever is holding a person to produce that person and justify the detention. It is the oldest of the writs and the one most directly aimed at unlawful confinement, and it can be issued by the Supreme Court under Article 32 and by every High Court under Article 226. The Emergency litigation asked whether the writ survives when the right to move a court for enforcement of fundamental rights has itself been suspended.

The lasting importance of the case is what followed it. The 44th Amendment of 1978 provided that the rights under Articles 20 and 21 can never be suspended, even during a Proclamation of Emergency, so the situation that produced the 1976 majority cannot arise again. The majority opinion was formally disapproved decades later when a nine-judge bench in the privacy case said it had been wrongly decided, and Justice Khanna's dissent is now the reading that survives. For an examination the discriminator is simply the label: four famous cases from the 1970s, only one of which is remembered by the name of a writ.

• Habeas corpus means 'you may have the body' and requires the detaining authority to produce the detenu and justify the detention.
• The writ is available from the Supreme Court under Article 32 and from every High Court under Article 226.
• The 1976 majority held that during the Emergency Presidential Order no person could move a court for enforcement of the right to life and personal liberty; Justice H. R. Khanna dissented.
• The 44th Constitutional Amendment, 1978, made Articles 20 and 21 non-suspendable even during an Emergency.
• Unlike the other writs, habeas corpus can be issued against a private person as well as against the State.

• Reaching for Maneka Gandhi because it is the most quoted Article 21 case; it is about procedure, not about the writ.
• Assuming the 1976 ruling is still good law — it has been disapproved, and the 44th Amendment removed its foundation.
• Confusing Article 358, which suspends Article 19 automatically in a war emergency, with Article 359, which suspends the right to move a court.

As a case-name recall item where all four options are genuine landmarks of the same decade, so only the specific subject of each will separate them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Constitutional Amendment provided that the rights under Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended even during a Proclamation of Emergency?

  • (a)The 42nd Amendment
  • (b)The 44th Amendment
  • (c)The 52nd Amendment
  • (d)The 61st Amendment

  Answer(b) The 44th Amendment, 1978 — enacted in direct response to the Emergency detention litigation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following writs can be issued against a private individual as well as against the State?

  • (a)Mandamus
  • (b)Quo warranto
  • (c)Habeas corpus
  • (d)Certiorari

  Answer(c) Habeas corpus — unlawful confinement by a private person is equally within its reach.