Maintainability Of Habeas Corpus Against Continued Detention Caused By Successive Arrests After Rejection Of Bail
Riya Aren, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi
ABSTRACT
The writ of habeas corpus has long stood as one of the most immediate constitutional safeguards available to a person deprived of personal liberty. Yet Indian courts have, over the decades, developed a cautious rule that habeas corpus ordinarily cannot be invoked once a competent court has already refused bail to the detenu, since doing so risks converting the writ jurisdiction into an appellate forum over bail orders. This paper interrogates that rule in the specific context of what may be termed "revolving door detention," a pattern in which a person, instead of being released on the failure of one proceeding, is kept incarcerated through a chain of fresh arrests, repeated criminal prosecutions, and successive invocations of preventive detention statutes. Using the pending matter of Haji Abdul Razzak v. State of Madhya Pradesh as a lens, the paper examines whether the settled bar on habeas corpus survives when the grievance is not against a single bail refusal but against a continuing, cumulative pattern of executive action allegedly designed to defeat liberty altogether. It argues that a rigid, mechanical application of the bail rejection bar is constitutionally unsound when Article 21 and Article 22(1) rights are independently violated. It proposes a doctrinal framework to distinguish genuine habeas grievances from disguised bail appeals.
Keywords: Habeas Corpus, Personal Liberty, Article 21, Article 22, Preventive Detention, National Security Act, Successive Arrests, Grounds of Arrest, Bail Jurisprudence, Constitutional Remedies.
