India's Constitution Guarantees Six Groups of Fundamental Rights in Articles 12 to 35, and Article 32 Lets a Person Whose Right Is Violated Go Straight to the Supreme Court

Articles 12 to 35 of the Constitution of India, which make up Part III, list the Fundamental Rights, and they have been in force since 26 January 1950. They are claims against the State, and under Article 32 a person whose right is violated can petition the Supreme Court directly. The Constitution gives that remedy itself, so the person need not start in a lower court.

What the six groups cover

Part III opens with two general articles, 12 and 13, and then sets out six headed groups of rights.

• Equality, Articles 14 to 18. Equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. No discrimination by the State on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Equal opportunity in public employment. Abolition of untouchability. No titles conferred by the State, apart from military or academic distinctions.
• Freedom, Articles 19 to 22. Citizens get six freedoms under Article 19(1): speech and expression, peaceful assembly without arms, forming associations or unions or cooperative societies, moving freely through India, living in any part of it, and practising any profession or running any trade or business. Article 20 bars punishment under a law passed after the act, a second prosecution for the same offence, and forcing an accused person to testify against himself. Life and personal liberty are protected by Article 21, children aged six to fourteen get free and compulsory education under Article 21A, and Article 22 sets rules for arrest and detention.
• Protection from exploitation, Articles 23 and 24. A ban on trafficking in human beings and on begar (unpaid forced labour), and a ban on employing a child under fourteen in a factory, a mine or other hazardous work.
• Freedom of religion, Articles 25 to 28. Freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion, the right of every religious denomination to run its own affairs and institutions, and freedom from being taxed for any particular religion.
• Cultural and educational rights, Articles 29 and 30. Any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture may conserve it, and all minorities, religious or linguistic, may set up and run educational institutions of their choice.
• Constitutional remedies, Article 32. Articles 33 to 35 follow, covering how Parliament may modify the rights for the armed forces, indemnify acts done under martial law and make laws to give the rights effect.

The words in each article decide who is covered. Article 14 protects “any person,” Articles 20 and 21 say “no person,” and Article 25 covers “all persons,” so non-citizens are included. Articles 15, 16 and 19 speak of citizens only.

One right has gone. Part III once contained a right to property in Article 31, along with Article 19(1)(f). Both were omitted by the Forty-fourth Amendment with effect from 20 June 1979. Today Article 300A, in Part XII, says only that no person shall be deprived of property “save by authority of law.”

Part III differs from Part IV in court. Article 37 says the Directive Principles of Part IV “shall not be enforceable by any court,” while the Fundamental Rights can be enforced, and Article 32 says how.

Who counts as the State

Most of the rights are limits on “the State,” and Article 12 defines the term for Part III. It includes the Government and Parliament of India, the Government and Legislature of each State, and “all local or other authorities” within India or under the control of the Government of India.

Courts have argued over “other authorities” for decades. In Ajay Hasia (reported 1981) the Supreme Court treated a society that ran the Regional Engineering College in Srinagar as an authority under Article 12. Governments funded it completely and approved its rules and finances, according to a case summary of the ruling. Five judges of a seven-judge bench held in 2002, in Pradeep Kumar Biswas, that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research is State. The test asked whether a body is financially, functionally and administratively dominated by the Government, and it said the control must be pervasive.

Some provisions already bind private persons. Article 15(2) says no citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, be subject to any disability in access to shops, restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment. That sentence names no State actor, and Articles 17, 23 and 24 are phrased as outright prohibitions. The IACL-IADC commentary lists all four among the rights that applied to private persons before 2023.

On 3 January 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench went further in Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh. Its majority opinion says “A fundamental right under Article 19/21 can be enforced even against persons other than the State or its instrumentalities.” One judge dissented on that point and would have confined Articles 19 and 21 to action against the State, with habeas corpus (a petition challenging a detention) as the one exception, according to the IACL-IADC commentary.

A law that breaks a right is void

Article 13 gives Part III its force. Under clause (2), the State “shall not make any law” that takes away or abridges these rights, and a law made in breach is void to the extent of the breach. Clause (3) defines “law” to include ordinances, orders, bye-laws, rules, regulations, notifications, custom and usage. Clause (1) applies the same test to laws already in force before 26 January 1950.

A fourth clause, added by the Twenty-fourth Amendment with effect from 5 November 1971, says the article does not apply to amendments made under Article 368. In 1973 a 13-judge bench in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala held that Parliament cannot alter the basic structure of the Constitution, by a narrow majority, according to the SCC Online account.

Navtej Singh Johar shows a law from the colonial period tested against Part III. The Indian Penal Code dates from 1860. On 6 September 2018 a five-judge bench declared that Section 377 of the Code violates Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private. Section 377 still governs non-consensual acts, acts against minors and bestiality, the judgment says, and the bench overruled the Court’s earlier decision in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation.

Every freedom comes with a list of limits

Most rights come with a built-in list of permitted limits. Article 19(2) allows “reasonable restrictions” on speech in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. The First Amendment rewrote this clause in 1951, and the Sixteenth added the sovereignty and integrity ground with effect from 5 October 1963.

The other freedoms have shorter lists of their own. Assembly can be restricted for public order or the sovereignty and integrity of India, and association for those two grounds or morality. Movement and residence can be restricted in the general public interest or to protect Scheduled Tribes. Trades and professions can be restricted in the general public interest under Article 19(6), which also lets the State run a trade or business itself.

A preventive detention law can authorise detention without trial for up to three months under Article 22. Beyond that an Advisory Board of High Court judges must report that there is sufficient cause. A change in the Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978 would shorten this to two months, but the pocket edition of the Constitution as on May 2022 still printed that change as “date yet to be notified.”

Under Article 33 Parliament may restrict the rights of the armed forces, the forces that keep public order and intelligence staff so that they can do their duties and keep discipline. Under Article 359 the President may suspend the right to go to court for enforcement of Part III rights while an Emergency proclamation is in force. Since 20 June 1979 Articles 20 and 21 are excluded from that power.

Courts decide whether a restriction fits its list. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, decided on 24 March 2015, a bench of two judges struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which punished sending certain offensive messages by computer. It violated Article 19(1)(a) and was “not saved under Article 19(2),” the judgment held, and its terms were undefined and vague. In Kaushal Kishor the majority also held the grounds listed in Article 19(2) to be exhaustive.

Article 32, the right that protects the others

Article 32(1) guarantees “the right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings” for enforcing Part III. Clause (2) gives the Court power to issue directions, orders or writs, which are formal court orders, including habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari. Clause (3) lets Parliament give other courts the same powers, and clause (4) says the right “shall not be suspended except as otherwise provided for by this Constitution.”

High Courts have a parallel power. Every High Court can issue writs under Article 226 to any person or authority, including the Government, for enforcing Part III rights “and for any other purpose,” a wider remit than Article 32.

The Constituent Assembly debated the clause, then numbered draft Article 25, on 9 December 1948. Ambedkar told the Assembly that if he were asked to name one article without which the Constitution “would be a nullity,” he could name no other. “It is the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it,” he said. For Ambedkar’s role on the Drafting Committee and how the Assembly worked, see the separate pieces.

Under Article 35 Parliament, not the States, has the power to prescribe punishments for acts that Part III declares offences. Take Article 17, which abolishes untouchability and makes enforcing any disability arising from it an offence. Parliament passed the Untouchability (Offences) Act on 8 May 1955, and it came into force on 1 June 1955. Since 19 November 1976 it has been called the Protection of Civil Rights Act. Section 3 punishes preventing a person from entering a place of public worship on grounds of untouchability with imprisonment of one to six months and a fine of 100 to 500 rupees.

How Article 21 grew from 1950 to 2017

The text of Article 21 is one sentence: no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty “except according to procedure established by law.” In 1950 the Supreme Court decided A. K. Gopalan v. State of Madras. There the majority held that a law of preventive detention that met the requirements of Article 22 was within Article 21 and did not also have to meet Article 19.

Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India changed that on 25 January 1978. The Government impounded her passport “in public interest” under Section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act by a letter dated 2 July 1977 and refused to give her reasons. Seven judges held that the procedure under Article 21 must be “right and just and fair” and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive, and that Articles 19 and 21 are not mutually exclusive. “Personal liberty,” the Court said, is of “the widest amplitude.” The Court held the Passports Act itself valid and recorded the Attorney General’s undertaking that the Government would deal with her case justly and fairly.

Later rulings drew new rights out of the same article. Olga Tellis (1985) held that the right to livelihood is part of the right to life. Unnikrishnan (1993) held that education falls under Article 21, and the Eighty-sixth Amendment then inserted Article 21A, in force from 1 April 2010.

The Emergency tested the article. A Presidential Order of 27 June 1975 under Article 359(1) suspended the right to move courts to enforce Article 21. In ADM Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla (1976), a majority of four judges, with Justice H. R. Khanna dissenting, held that this barred habeas corpus petitions by detained people. Later the Forty-fourth Amendment put Articles 20 and 21 beyond Article 359. Then in 2017 the Puttaswamy judgment said that “ADM Jabalpur must be and is accordingly overruled.”

The Puttaswamy case began as a challenge to the Aadhaar scheme. A three-judge bench noted on 11 August 2015 that two earlier rulings, M. P. Sharma (1954, eight judges) and Kharak Singh (1964, six judges), contained observations that the Constitution does not protect privacy. A nine-judge bench took it up on 18 July 2017. Its order of 24 August 2017, signed by all nine judges, overruled M. P. Sharma and, in part, Kharak Singh. It records that the right to privacy “is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21,” and also as part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III. Justice D. Y. Chandrachud delivered the judgment for four judges, and five other judges wrote separate opinions.