HABEAS CORPUS

HABEAS CORPUS

Subject: Polity

Context: The court said this while disposing a Habeas Corpus plea filed by an MBA student seeking that a 23-year-old woman, whom he wished to marry, be produced before the court, as she had been illegally detained.

Concept:

• According to Article 32, both the High Courts and the Supreme Court can be approached for violation or enactment of fundamental rights through five kinds of writs.
• Habeas corpus – related to personal liberty in cases of illegal detentions and wrongful arrests
• The writ of habeas corpus primarily acts as a writ of enquiry; it is issued by the courts to ascertain the grounds of detention of an individual.
• Therefore, it acts as a procedural safeguard against the law enforcement authorities, specifically their power to take into custody.
• Moreover, if sufficient legal grounds of arrest are missing, the court will order the immediate release of the individual.
• The writ of habeas corpus serves as a procedural device, by which executive, judicial, or other governmental restraints on personal liberty are subjected to judicial scrutiny.
• The Writ of Habeas Corpus is a remedy available to the person who has lost his personal liberty and as such, it cannot be invoked to challenge past illegal detentions.
• However, the Supreme Court has expanded the dimension of this writ and now the Court awards compensation not only for past illegal detentions.
• Other writs available are:
• Mandamus — directing public officials, governments, courts to perform a statutory duty;
• Quo warranto — to show by what warrant is a person holding public office;
• Prohibition — directing judicial or quasi-judicial authorities to stop proceedings which it has no jurisdiction for; and
• Certiorari — re-examination of an order given by judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative authorities.