A.K.

GOPAVAN vs STATE OF MADRAS AIR 1950 SC 27; 1950 SCR 88

FACTS:
A.K.Gopalan, a communist leader, was detained in the Madras jail. In act, he had been in detention since 1947.
He was sentenced to various terms of imprisonment under the ordinary criminal law but every time the sentence
was set aside. When he was still under the detention under the orders of the state government, he was
served with a fresh order of detention under the Prevention of Detention Act, 1950

ARGUMENT:

Gopalan contended that detention deprived him of his right to personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21; that
personal liberty under Article 21 included all the freedoms conferred by Article 19(1) (a) to (g); that it included
the right of free movement conferred by Article 19 (1) (d) because freedom of movement was the essence of
personal liberty and, therefore, the Prevention of Detention Act of 1950 should also satisfy the requirements of
Articles 19(1); and that Article 19(1) dealt with substantive rights and Article 21 with
procedural rights.

Initially where the validity of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950 was challenged, the main question was
whether Article 21 envisaged any procedure laid down by a law enacted by a legislature, or whether the
procedure should be fair and reasonable. By this case, an attempt was made to win for the detenu better
procedural safeguards than were available to him under the relevant detention law and Article 22, and a very
important question was raised which required interpretation of Constitution

JUDGEMENT:
But the attempt failed as the Supreme Court of India rejected the argument that expression 'procedure
established by law' introduces into India the American concept of procedural due process which enables the
courts to see whether the law fulfils the requisite elements of a reasonable procedure.
In fact, the draft Constitution of India had contained the words 'due process of law' but these words were later
dropped and the present phraseology adopted instead. But as per the Supreme Court of India, this was strong
evidence to show that the Constituent Assembly did not desire to introduce into India the concept of procedural
due process which was done mainly to avoid the uncertainty surrounding the due process concept in the USA.
However, the decision in Gopalan case was a majority decision and Justice Fazl Ali disagreed with the majority
view and accepted the due process argument.

CONCUSION:

In Gopalans case, the court took a highly conservative view of personal liberty. It gave a restricted meaning to
the expression personal liberty and viewed it only as an antithesis of physical restraint or coercion. Under article
21, the supreme court refused the word due and the court held that according to them law is closed logical
system and nothing can be added to this particular article.