habeas corpus

Habeas corpus (“you may have the body”) is the writ that protects personal liberty. The Supreme Court issues it under Article 32 and High Courts under Article 226. It lies against the State and also against private persons, as where a family confines an adult daughter. Locus standi is relaxed: a relative, friend or even a letter from a prisoner can move the court. If the detention is not shown to be lawful, the court orders release.

In ADM Jabalpur v. S.S. Shukla (1976) a majority held that during the Emergency no one could seek habeas corpus to enforce Article 21. The 44th Amendment then made Articles 20 and 21 non-suspendable, and in Puttaswamy (2017) the nine-judge bench expressly overruled ADM Jabalpur. The writ does not ordinarily lie where a person is in custody under a valid judicial order.

Example

When the police held the youth for three days without producing him before a magistrate, his mother filed a petition for habeas corpus in the High Court.

In Indian law

• Articles 32 and 226, Constitution of India
• Additional District Magistrate, Jabalpur v. S.S. Shukla, 1976 INSC 129
• Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, 2017 INSC 801 (overruling ADM Jabalpur)

See also

writ · right to life and personal liberty · preventive detention · mandamus

Read more in the study notes

• Rule of law and droit administratif (Administrative Law)
• Judicial control: public and private law remedies, writ procedure and ouster clauses (Administrative Law)
• Preventive action of the police (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
• Article 22: rights of the arrested person and preventive detention (Constitutional Law I)
• Articles 32 and 226: constitutional remedies, the writs and PIL (Constitutional Law I)
• The Speaker and parliamentary privileges (Constitutional Law II)