'Protection of life and personal liberty' is guaranteed under which Article of the Constitution?

Article 21 states: "No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law." It is available to all persons, citizens as well as foreigners. It is considered the "heart" of the Fundamental Rights and has been interpreted by the Supreme Court very widely.

In the A.K. Gopalan case (1950), the Supreme Court took a narrow view, holding that "procedure established by law" meant only any procedure laid down by a valid law. However, in the landmark Maneka Gandhi case (1978), the Court held that the procedure must be "just, fair and reasonable", not arbitrary. This brought Article 21 close to the American idea of "due process of law".

Since then, the Supreme Court has read many rights into the "right to life", holding that it means the right to live with human dignity. These include:

The right to livelihood.

The right to a clean and healthy environment, pure water and air.

The right to privacy (declared a Fundamental Right in the K.S. Puttaswamy case, 2017, by a nine-judge bench).

The right to die with dignity, including passive euthanasia (Common Cause case, 2018).

The right to education was also read into Article 21 earlier (Unni Krishnan case, 1993), and later made a separate Fundamental Right under Article 21A by the 86th Amendment (2002).

Under the 44th Amendment (1978), Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended even during a National Emergency.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Article 19 guarantees six freedoms, such as speech and movement, to citizens.
• ✗Article 22 gives protection against arbitrary arrest and detention.
• ✗Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws.