VISAKHAPATNAM: Supreme Court (SC) judge Justice V Ramasubramaniam on Saturday said, “Our society is in the process of churning from bad period to good period and so there is no danger for freedom or personal liberty of an individual.” Article 21 of the Indian Constitution was formulated after hours of discussion and deliberations and there was scope for expansion, he said.
The SC judge was delivering the DV Subbarao fourth memorial lecture on ‘Expanding horizons of Article 21 of the Constitution’ organised by Centre for Policy Studies and Visakhapatnam Public Library here.Shedding light into Article 21, which provides ‘no person shall be deprived of his or her life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law’, he said, “Initially, the wording ‘due process of law’ was used instead of ‘procedure established by law’. But after painstaking discussion, it was decided to use the latter in fine print, as the former would burden the judiciary system.”
He said many historians of the United Kingdom (UK) and the world thought that India could not survive as a democracy because of its diversity and would crumble like nine pins in few years. But critics were proved wrong and India survived as a vibrant democracy well into the 21st century, he said. The SC judge quoted several indian and foreign judgments to elucitdate the importance given to Article 21 which was at the heart of the Constitution.
Andhra Pradesh High Court judge Justice Somyajulu also spoke on the occasion. The programme was presided over by Centre of Policy Studies director A Prasanna Kumar. Andhra Pradesh National Law University former vice-chancellor Y Satyanarayana, district judge BS Bhanumathi, Forum of Legal Professionals president Kuppili Muralidhar, legal luminaries, law students and serving and retired HC judges took part in the meeting.