Authored By: Adv Abru Iqbal
Jammu and Kashmir University
{Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017)} and
(Mohd Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum {1985})
Human law is not very different. A legal system survives only as long as its rules remain coherent and enforceable. But there is a paradox at the heart of this comparison, unlike the laws of physics, the laws of society are written, interpreted by people, and applied to citizens whose circumstances are never quite the same twice. A law that is left vague ,undefined, unchallenged, unexamined does not hold society cohesively the way physical law holds the universe together. It does the opposite. It creates uncertainty, invites arbitrary application, and ultimately fails the very purpose it was created for, to serve Justice.
This is the quiet crisis every legal system eventually faces. Statutes are written in general language because lawmakers cannot foresee every situation a rule will one day be asked to govern. So the words sit there, technically binding, but silent on the details that actually decide a person’s fate in court. Someone has to fill that silence. That someone is the judiciary and the tool it reaches for is doctrine or principals.
Doctrines are not handed down as a finished checklist. They are built, case by case, often by a single dispute that forces a court to confront a question no statute had answered. What follows are some of those cases moments where a court did not just settle a quarrel between two parties, but left behind a principle that reshaped the law itself.
The cases which shaped free India,
Article 21 —The Soul of the Constitution
At the heart of this case {Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017)} cited as AIR 2017 SC 4161 , Writ Petition (Civil) No. 494 of 2012 heard by Supreme Court of India by 9-Judge Constitution Bench ,one of the largest benches ever constituted by the Supreme Court, reflecting the constitutional significance of the privacy question.
In the heart of the case lies Article 21, often called the soul of the Indian Constitution. It states as : “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”
Read quickly, it sounds like just another rule. But look closer, and it ‘s remarkable as it protects not only citizens, but every human being on Indian soil. And over the years, Judges kept asking a deeper question: what does it really mean to be alive? Not just to breathe, but to live with dignity, choice, and self-respect. Because a person crushed, silenced, or humiliated isn’t truly living even if their heart is still beating.That’s why Article 21 isn’t just one right among many. it’s the root that holds up every other right. Take away Article 21, and everything else voice, work, relationships becomes hollow. Over decades, courts let new branches grow from that one line about life and liberty the right to privacy, to livelihood, to a clean environment, to health, and to education. None of these were written down originally judges simply insisted that”life” always meant more than mere survival.But the branch that took longest to grew was Right to privacy .In M.P.Sharma v Satish Chandra (1954 ) an 8 Judge bench and in Kharak Singh v State of U.P(1962) a 6 judge bench , the respective Court had actually denied it was a right at all. For over 60 years, it stayed cut off. But then history takes own course and time .
How it Begin
It was in 2012, when Justice K.S. Puttaswamy ,a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court — decided he could no longer stay silent. He challenged the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar scheme, worried about what it meant for ordinary citizens to have their biometric and demographic details collected and stored by the State. Behind this legal challenge lay a deeper, uneasy question: how much of a person’s private life can the government hold in its hands before it starts to feel like surveillance?
When the matter reached the courtroom, the Union of India took a rather startling stand .It argued that the Constitution never explicitly promised its citizens a right to privacy in the first place.
Then The Honourable Supreme Court answered on the Date of Judgment 24 August, 2017
Through a historic nine-judge Bench to settle this question once and for all and their answer was unanimous. Privacy, they held, is not a separate or add-on right, it lives within the very idea of “life and personal liberty” guaranteed under Article 21. The judges went further, describing privacy as a natural right something inherent to being human, tied inseparably to dignity and freedom, not something the Constitution needed to “grant” for it to exist. In doing so, the Court set aside two old rulings M.P. Sharma(1954) and Kharak Singh (1962) which had once denied that privacy deserved constitutional protection. Decades of doubt were finally put to rest but then the other challenging aspect of right to privacy came to surface which was that is this freedom absolute ?
And again Honourable Supreme Court Judges laid down a three-fold test on 24 August 2017 .The three-fold test was most clearly and specifically laid out in the plurality opinion authored by Justice Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud ,CJI J.S. Khehar, Justice R.K. Agrawal, and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer respectively they stated that the government must pass three fold test before it can restrict someone’s privacy .the three fold test is as ,
Legality :There has to be an actual law permitting the action, the government can’t act on whim.
Legitimate State Aim:The restriction must serve a genuine purpose, like protecting national security or maintaining public order , not just convenience.
Proportionality:Even if the goal is legitimate, the intrusion into someone’s privacy can’t be more than what’s truly necessary to achieve it.
Thus the Puttaswamy judgment stands as one of the most remarkable moments in India’s constitutional history not because it created a new right, but because it freed one that had always existed, silenced for over sixty years by outdated rulings.
In declaring privacy a fundamental right, the Supreme Court reminded the nation that the Constitution is not frozen in time it breathes, grows, and corrects itself. It proved that dignity, liberty, and selfhood are not gifts granted by the State, but truths the Constitution was always meant to protect.
This is why Puttaswamy is remembered not just as a case, but as a constitutional awakening a moment when the Court looked back at its own history, admitted its errors, and finally let the tree of Article 21 grow into the shade it was always meant to give.
Section 125 the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973 replaced by the Section 144 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023.
Women’s Rights to Equality and Dignity and Secularism 0f the Country,
(Mohd Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum {1985}) cited as 1985 AIR 945
1985 SCR (3) 844, 1985 SCC (2) 556 heard by 5 constitution bench namely
Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud (authored the judgment),Justice D.A. Desai
Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy,Justice E.S. Venkataramiah and Justice Ranganath Misra.
The above mentioned case has given true meaning to the idea of a secular India one where, regardless of caste, colour, creed, or religion, a person could still claim a right that their own personal law might otherwise deny them. It didn’t pause to ask what faith a woman belonged to before extending its protection, it simply asked whether she needed it. This is the landmark “Triple Talaq” case, one of the most significant judgments on gender justice and personal law in India.
How it began ,
Shah Bano ,a 62-year-old Muslim woman, married Mohammed Ahmed Khan (an advocate) in 1932. They had five children.In 1975, after 43 years of marriage, her husband drove her out of their matrimonial home.In April 1978, Shah Bano filed a petition demanding ₹500 per month as maintenance under Section 125 of the Crpc now section 144 of BNSS( Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita) .To escape this, her husband gave her an irrevocable Talaq (divorce) in November 1978. He claimed that under Muslim Personal Law, he was only responsible for paying her a total of ₹5,400 (covering her bridal gift and 3 months of the Iddat period( The Waiting Period). In August 1979, the local Magistrate ruled against the husband but granted Shah Bano a meagre maintenance of just ₹25 per month.Dismayed by the tiny amount of ₹25, Shah Bano filed a revision petition in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.She argued that ₹25 was completely insufficient for basic human survival. In July 1980, the High Court ruled in her favour.and increased her monthly maintenance to ₹179.20.Unwilling to pay the increased amount, her husband, Mohammed Ahmed Khan (who was an advocate himself), filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court of India. He wanted to overturn the High Court’s order, arguing that secular Indian courts had no authority to interfere with Islamic personal laws.
Then the Honourable Supreme Court of India delivered its unanimous landmark verdict on April 23, 1985. The 5-judge constitutional bench, led by Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, dismissed the husband’s appeal and ruled fully in favour of Shah Bano.
The court ruled that Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) now 144 BNSS( Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita) is a secular, criminal law enacted to prevent destitution and vagrancy. It applies to all citizens equally, regardless of their religion.
Following the Supreme Court’s 1985 verdict in favor of Shah Bano, the case triggered a massive political backlash, a controversial new law that overturned the judgment, and a major shift in Indian political history. Fearing the loss of Muslim voters, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government used its absolute majority in Parliament to pass the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. This Act effectively overturned the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano judgment. It limited a Muslim husband’s liability to pay maintenance to only the 90-day Iddat period after divorce. After that, the financial responsibility shifted to the woman’s relatives or the State Waqf Boards( statutory body constituted by each state government in India to administer, manage, and supervise Waqf properties within that state.
The Shah Bano judgment was, at its core, an act of judicial courage. The Court looked at an elderly, abandoned woman and asked a simple human question, should she be left to starve just because her personal law offered her less? Its answer was no, dignity comes first was progressive, humane, and legally sound, since Section 125 CrPC now section 144 BNSS was always meant to be a secular safety net, not a religious rule.
The Shah Bano case established a foundational principle for secular law in India by creating a clear legal doctrine that when a public welfare law conflicts with a religious personal law, the secular public law always takes priority.
Ultimately, these landmark legal battles prove that the grandest legal doctrines are born from the quiet, desperate struggles of ordinary individuals or some conscience Judges or any other segment of society. By refusing to back down, these brave section of people forced the judiciary to look past ancient dogmas and confront the realities of human suffering. The legal doctrines they forged did more than just rewrite Indian law, they permanently broke the chains of legal isolation, embedding the fundamental rights and dignity of every citizen into the very soul of a modern and secular India.
