The Supreme Court on May 15 held that the right to life and personal liberty is the most sacrosanct of fundamental rights while declaring that investigating agencies should provide people arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) with a written copy of information specifying the grounds of their arrest.
A Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Sandeep Mehta applied its earlier judgment in the Pankaj Bansal case — which had held that an arrested person should be informed of the grounds of arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) — to UAPA cases.
“The purpose of informing to the arrested person the grounds of arrest is salutary and sacrosanct inasmuch as, this information would be the only effective means for the arrested person to consult his advocate; oppose the police custody remand and to seek bail. Any other interpretation would [be] tantamount to diluting the sanctity of the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 22(1) of the Constitution. The Right to Life and Personal Liberty is the most sacrosanct fundamental right,” the court held in the Prabir Purkayastha case judgment on Wednesday.
