ARTICLE - 22, INDIAN CONSTITUTION PROCEDURE ESTABLISHED BY LAW

    ARTICLE - 22,   INDIAN CONSTITUTION

PROCEDURE ESTABLISHED BY LAW

     Imagine you are having finished your dinner with your family. There is banging on the door. Two police men enter and said you have to go with them. You go with them and are handcuffed, put into a police van and taken to the police station through the back entrance. You are put in dark room. After eight hours. A man enter and imputing you about a conspiracy to assassinate the prime minister. When you heard it, you are getting shock. Then who will help you to removing this charges. Definitely Article - 22. See the detail as follow:

PROTECTION AGAINST ARREST AND DETENTION IN CERTAIN CASES

1. No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed.  The grounds for such arrest nor shall he be denied the right to consult, and to be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice.

2. Every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of twenty four (24) hours of such arrest and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a magistrate.

3. Nothing in clauses (1) & (2) shall apply:

     a) To any person who for the time being is an enemy alien or

     b) To any person who is arrested or detained under any law provided for preventive detention.

PREVENTIVE DETENTION ARTICLE 22:

1. Preventive detention means detention of a person without trial.

2. The constitution itself authorizes the Legislature to make laws providing for “Preventive detention” for reasons connected with the security of State, the maintenance of public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community, or for reasons connected with defense, foreign affairs or the security of India.

3. So, it would be competent to the Legislature to enact that a person should be detained or imprisoned without trial for any of the above reasons and against such laws. The individual shall have no right of personal liberty.

4. The Constitution, however, imposes certain safeguards against abuse of the above power.  It is these safeguards which constitute fundamental rights against arbitrary detention and it is because of these safeguards that ‘preventive detention’ has found a place in the part of ‘Fundamental Rights’ in our Constitution.

THE RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF ART. 22 READ AS FOLLOWS:

     When a person has been arrested under a law of preventive detention:

1. The Govt. is entitled to detain such person in custody only for three months. If it seeks to detain the arrested person for more than months, it must obtain a report from an Advisory Board, who will examine the papers submitted by the Govt. and by the accused, as to whether the detention is justified.

2. The person so detained shall, as soon as may be informed of the grounds of his detention excepting facts which the detaining authority considers to be against the public interest to disclose.

3. The person detained must have the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order of detention.

     A law which violate any of the conditions imposed by Art. 22, as stated above, is liable to be declared invalid and an order of detention which violates any of these conditions will, similarly, be invalidated by the court, and the detainee shall forthwith be set free.

Parliament has the power to prescribe, by law, the maximum period for which a person may be detained under a law of preventive detention.

Reference:

1.     Constitution of India

2.     From the trenches- Abhishek singhvi

3.     Sony notes