ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla

The story

In 1975, India's Emergency turned courtrooms into one of the last refuges for citizens jailed without charge. Political workers, journalists, and ordinary dissenters languished in prison under MISA, their detention orders often vague or vindictive. When several High Courts allowed detainees to at least ask whether their detention was lawful, the government pushed back all the way to the Supreme Court. Five judges heard the case that would decide whether the Constitution itself could be silenced by decree. Four of them sided with the state, reasoning that with Article 21 suspended, the courts' hands were tied — no matter how unjust a detention, no remedy existed. Justice H.R. Khanna disagreed alone, writing that life and liberty were not gifts of the Constitution but pre-existed it, and that no law, however worded, could allow the state to become a law unto itself. His dissent cost him the Chief Justiceship, given to a junior colleague instead. Decades later, history vindicated him: the judgment was disowned as a mistake, and Khanna's words became part of India's constitutional conscience, a reminder of what courts must never again do to their own citizens.

The facts

During the internal Emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi's government in 1975, thousands of political opponents and activists were detained without trial under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). Detainees filed habeas corpus petitions before several High Courts, arguing their detentions were illegal or malafide. The High Courts held that despite the suspension of Article 14, 21 and 22 remedies under a Presidential order, they could still examine whether detentions complied with the law. The Union government appealed these High Court rulings to the Supreme Court.

The question before the court

Whether, during a Presidential Emergency under Article 359 suspending the enforcement of Article 21, a detenu retains any locus standi to move a court for habeas corpus challenging the legality of preventive detention.

The holding

By a 4:1 majority (Chief Justice A.N. Ray and Justices Beg, Chandrachud and Bhagwati, with Justice H.R. Khanna dissenting), the Supreme Court held that once the President's order under Article 359 suspended the right to move any court for enforcement of Article 21, no person could challenge the legality of detention during the Emergency, even on grounds of malafide action or non-compliance with the detention law itself. The majority reasoned that Article 21 was the sole source of the right to life and personal liberty, so its suspension meant courts were powerless to grant relief regardless of how arbitrary the detention was. Justice Khanna dissented forcefully, holding that the right to life and liberty existed even without Article 21 and that no Emergency could extinguish the judiciary's power to check unlawful executive action.

The principle it stands for

During a Proclamation of Emergency under Article 359 suspending enforcement of Article 21, the judiciary cannot entertain a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of preventive detention, because Article 21 is treated as the exclusive repository of the right to life and personal liberty. This reasoning was later disapproved and the judgment is now considered bad law.

Provisions this case shaped

• Art. 21Protection of life and personal libertylimited — Majority held Article 21 enforcement stood wholly suspended during Emergency, barring judicial relief for illegal detention.
• Art. 359Suspension of the enforcement of the rights conferred by Part III during emergenciesinterpreted — Court interpreted Presidential order under Article 359 as completely barring habeas corpus remedies during Emergency.