The Expanding Ambit Of Article 21
Deepali, National University of Study and Research in Law, NUSRL, Ranchi
ABSTRACT
Article 21 of the Constitution of India is one of the shortest provisions in the document and, by judicial interpretation, one of the longest in its reach. In seventy-odd years, it has moved from a narrow guarantee against arbitrary physical restraint to the textual home of dignity, livelihood, health, education, privacy and a healthy environment, and most recently a right against the adverse effects of climate change. This paper does not question the moral worth of that journey. It asks what the journey has cost, and whether the Supreme Court’s continuing creation of rights has outpaced the remedial and institutional machinery needed to make them real. Using Roscoe Pound’s distinction between “law in books” and “law in action”, the paper traces the interpretive history of Article 21, examines the structural effect of importing non- justiciable Directive Principles of State Policy into enforceable Fundamental Rights, and studies the pattern in which rights are announced while relief is deferred, diluted or denied. It argues that the result is a condition best described as declaratory constitutionalism, and that the remedy lies not in halting the expansion but in building enforceable remedial standards, a codified law of state liability, and structured judicial supervision of compliance.
Keywords: Article 21; Right to life; Declaratory Constitutionalism; Constitutional tort; Law in Books and Law in Action; Enforcement deficit.
