ADM Jabalpur at 50: Reminiscences from the case that closed the doors of liberty

AFTER OBTAINING my law degree in 1973, I started my practice in the Banda district court, where two of my uncles practised: one was a lawyer on the civil and revenue side, and the other on the criminal side. After a year, I shifted to the Kanpur district court to practise with Barrister Narendra Jeet Singh. His wife had inherited property in Kashmir, and he used to visit there every year. At the end of a year, he invited me to spend the summer of 1975 in Srinagar, which I gladly accepted.

On the fateful night intervening 25–26 June, when the Internal Emergency was imposed, I was on a train on my way back to join my father’s chamber at Allahabad. I had flown from Srinagar to Amritsar from where I took a train to Delhi, and then caught an overnight train to Allahabad. 

My father was a prominent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (‘RSS’) man. Our family and the family of Rajju Bhaiya (who later became the fourth Sar Sanghchalak of the RSS) were very close. We had our houses in the same compound. He used to come over to our house every day in the morning to read newspapers and often in the evening after attending the shakha.

After the Emergency was imposed, Rajju Bhaiya went underground to fight against the tyranny. My father was first arrested under the Defence of India Rules, 1962. He was granted bail but before he could come out of jail, he was detained under Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 (‘MISA’), equivalent to the present National Security Act, 1980 (‘NSA’).

We filed a habeas corpus petition for my father’s release. The State raised a preliminary point regarding its maintainability. The matter was referred to a five judge bench. It was decided in our favour by four to one.

However, the State took the matter to the Supreme Court. This is how my involvement started with the habeas corpus case—the case that would make Justice H.R. Khanna, the greatest judge ever to adorn the Bench of the Supreme Court, and for whose honour the New York Times remarked that a statue should be erected in every city in India.

The issue before the Court

On June 27, 1975, two days after Emergency was imposed, the right to move the court to enforce Articles 14, 21, and 22 were suspended completely. This was for the first time, as on earlier occasions, they were suspended only for the people detained or arrested under specific enactments. Article 19 was already unavailable due to Article 358.

The State, in my father’s case as well as in all other habeas corpus petitions filed throughout the country, raised a preliminary objection about their maintainability. According to it, Article 21 was the sole repository of liberty; its enforcement was suspended; and no habeas corpus petition was maintainable.

The answer to the State’s contention lay in the concept of the ‘Rule of Law’.