CLAT PG Current Affairs — 4 October 2026

Courts have progressively read Directive Principles of State Policy into Article 21, converting non-justiciable welfare obligations into enforceable fundamental rights. Through PIL, judicial review, and harmonious construction, the Supreme Court expanded the right to life to include livelihood, education, health, environment, and legal aid. This shift moved the relationship between Part III and Part IV from conflict — where Fundamental Rights prevailed — to complementarity, treating both as equally indispensable constitutional pillars.

The Constitution creates a deliberate asymmetry between Part III and Part IV. Fundamental Rights are justiciable — courts can strike down laws that violate them under Articles 32 and 226. Directive Principles are explicitly non-justiciable under Article 37: the State must apply them in governance, but no court can enforce them directly.

Early judicial interpretation treated the two as potentially conflicting, with Fundamental Rights prevailing in case of clash (State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan, 1951). Parliament responded with constitutional amendments; courts countered with the basic structure doctrine from Kesavananda Bharati (1973), which held that even amendments cannot destroy the Constitution's core.

The turning point came through expansive reading of Article 21. In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), the Court held that 'procedure established by law' must be fair, just, and reasonable — opening the door to substantive due process. Subsequent rulings used this to absorb DPSP-backed values: Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) recognised the right to livelihood; Unni Krishnan v. State of AP (1993) the right to education; MC Mehta cases established the right to a clean environment.

The doctrinal tool is harmonious construction: where Fundamental Rights and DPSPs appear to conflict, courts read them together to advance constitutional goals. The Supreme Court described them as 'two wheels of a chariot' in Minerva Mills (1980), prohibiting Parliament from giving DPSPs absolute supremacy over Part III. The equilibrium — neither part can destroy the other — is itself a basic structure element.

The Supreme Court, in Jaskaran Jeet Singh Deol vs State of Punjab, ruled that when an arrest is declared illegal for violating Article 22(1) — the right to be informed of grounds of arrest — the police cannot simply re-arrest the person. They must approach the jurisdictional magistrate, furnish written grounds, explain the earlier failure, and obtain senior officer endorsement. The court also mandated departmental action against the errant officer and transfer of the investigation to another officer.

Article 22(1) of the Constitution guarantees two rights to every arrested person: the right to be informed of the grounds of arrest 'as soon as may be,' and the right to consult a lawyer of their choice. These sit within Part III (Fundamental Rights) and operate alongside Article 21's protection of personal liberty. The Deol judgment builds on a line of recent precedents: Pankaj Bansal (meaningful communication of grounds required), Prabir Purkayastha (written grounds mandatory), and Mihir Rajesh Shah (applies across all statutes; must be in a language the arrested person understands). A May 2025 Supreme Court ruling went further, holding that non-compliance with Article 22(1) vitiates both the arrest and subsequent remand orders, and that a charge sheet filed later cannot retrospectively cure the constitutional breach. The Deol ruling adds a structural remedy: once the State has committed a constitutional violation in depriving someone of liberty, it cannot unilaterally decide to exercise that same power again. A judicial authority must intervene. The court also addressed Article 22(2) — production before a magistrate within 24 hours — noting that Deol was arrested at 7:55 am on May 17 and produced only around noon on May 18. The ruling is doctrinally significant because it converts an arrest safeguard from a procedural rule into an enforceable constitutional checkpoint with institutional consequences for violators.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, conducted under the Representation of the People Act, has raised constitutional questions about citizenship verification and the burden of proof. The Supreme Court has held that any State action affecting life or personal liberty under Article 21 must satisfy procedural fairness. When the State labels someone a suspected foreigner during SIR, the question is whether the burden of proof shifts to the individual or stays with the State.

The SIR process involves electoral roll revision where officials can flag individuals as 'doubtful citizens.' This intersects with the Foreigners Act, 1946, which under Section 9 places the burden of proof on the accused person to prove they are not a foreigner — an inversion of the ordinary criminal law presumption of innocence.

The constitutional tension is threefold. First, Article 21 guarantees protection of life and personal liberty, and the Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) extended this to require that any deprivation must be through a fair, just, and reasonable procedure — not merely any procedure established by law. Second, Article 14 demands non-arbitrariness in State action. Third, Article 19(1)(d) protects the right to move freely, which citizenship determines.

The court's position, built across cases including Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India (2005) and subsequent Foreigners Tribunal jurisprudence, is that while Section 9 of the Foreigners Act is constitutionally valid and the burden does lie on the alleged foreigner, the initial triggering of proceedings must be based on credible material — the State cannot arbitrarily invoke the machinery. During SIR, if someone is marked 'D-voter' (doubtful voter) without basis, it amounts to arbitrary State action violating Article 21 read with Article 14.

The procedural safeguard the court insists upon is that the individual must be given an opportunity to be heard before being disenfranchised or detained — natural justice as a constitutional imperative under Article 21.

The Gujarat High Court has directed registration of an FIR against police officers responsible for the 2023 custodial death of an Indian Telecom Service officer. The court invoked Article 21, holding that the right to life extends to persons in state custody and cannot be suspended by mere detention. The case highlights judicial intervention when police inaction shields custodial violence, reinforcing that the state bears a non-derogable duty to protect detainees from torture and death.

Custodial death cases occupy a critical intersection of constitutional law and criminal procedure. When a person dies in police custody, two distinct legal obligations arise simultaneously. First, under Article 21 of the Constitution, the state is duty-bound to protect life and personal liberty — a right that does not pause upon arrest. Second, under criminal procedure, an FIR must be registered and a magistrate-led inquiry must follow.

Section 176 of the CrPC (now Section 194 of BNSS 2023) mandates a judicial magistrate inquiry whenever a person dies in police custody. This is not optional — the Supreme Court in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) laid down comprehensive guidelines for arrest and custody, including the requirement of medical examination, maintenance of custody records, and the right to inform family members. Violation of these guidelines itself attracts liability.

The Gujarat HC's direction to register an FIR signals a critical principle: police cannot self-investigate custodial deaths without judicial oversight. Courts have repeatedly held that when the alleged perpetrators are state agents, the ordinary chain of command cannot be trusted to investigate impartially. This case also engages the NHRC guidelines, which require automatic reporting of custodial deaths within 24 hours.

India has signed but not ratified the UN Convention Against Torture (1984), a recurring CLAT PG fact. The constitutional protection against torture is derived from Articles 21, 20(3), and 22 — not from a standalone anti-torture statute.

India's envoy to Bangladesh has stated that India cannot commit to any deadline for extraditing former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been sheltering in India since fleeing Bangladesh in August 2024. India also distanced itself from a media event where Hasina reportedly made remarks about the Bangladesh government, clarifying it had no role in organising the forum and does not endorse statements made there. The extradition request from Dhaka remains formally unresolved.

This standoff between India and Bangladesh over Hasina's extradition illuminates a core principle of international extradition law: extradition is a sovereign act governed by treaty obligations and domestic law, not diplomatic pressure or arbitrary timelines. India and Bangladesh share a bilateral extradition treaty signed in 2013. Under standard extradition law, the requested state — India here — must evaluate the request against treaty conditions: dual criminality (the offence must be a crime in both states), political offence exception, and procedural requirements including a formal request with supporting evidence. A requested state is not legally obligated to accept deadlines set by the requesting state. This is fundamentally distinct from deportation, which is an administrative removal under immigration law without requiring a treaty. The political offence exception is particularly relevant: if the alleged crimes are characterised as politically motivated, extradition can be refused. India's diplomatic distancing from Hasina's media appearance also signals that sheltering a foreign national is not the same as endorsing that person's political positions — a distinction tested in extradition jurisprudence. For CLAT PG aspirants, this event directly activates knowledge of bilateral treaty mechanics, the dual criminality rule, and the sovereign discretion doctrine in extradition.