Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution — Articles 12 to 35

Under British rule, the government could arrest without cause, seize property, ban a meeting or shut down a newspaper — and no court could stop it.

It could do this because Parliament in London was supreme. Whatever Parliament passed was law, and no judge had the power to say otherwise. There was no higher rule the government itself had to obey.

The Constituent Assembly had lived through that and was determined it should not happen again — not even at the hands of an elected Indian government. So they wrote a set of limits into the Constitution itself and made those limits enforceable in court.

That is what Fundamental Rights are. They are not rights the government grants you. They are restrictions on what the government may do to you, placed in Part III of the Constitution, Articles 12 to 35.

Part III guarantees six rights. Here they are in full, and the rest of this page explains how each one works.

A seventh right used to be on this list. The Right to Property was removed by the 44th Amendment (1978) and relocated to Article 300A, where it survives as an ordinary constitutional right rather than a Fundamental Right.

The difference is practical, not cosmetic. The state can now acquire property by law without that being a Fundamental Rights violation, and a citizen cannot go directly to the Supreme Court under Article 32 to challenge such acquisition.

Nineteen articles carry the six rights. Here is what each one does.

Article 14 — Equality before law Article 14 says two things. Equality before law means no one is above the law. A minister and a labourer face the same courts and the same rules. Nobody gets special treatment because of who they are. Equal protection of the laws means people in the same situation must be treated the same way.

But treating everyone identically is not always fair. A person earning ten lakh and a person earning two lakh are not in the same situation, so taxing them at the same rate would be unjust. The state is therefore allowed to divide people into groups and treat the groups differently — higher tax on higher income, reserved seats for backward classes.

The condition is that the grouping must make sense. It must be based on a real difference, and that difference must be relevant to what the law is trying to do. A tax law can distinguish by income. It cannot distinguish by religion.

Article 15 — No discrimination The state cannot discriminate against any citizen on five grounds only: religion, race, caste, sex, and place of birth. That list is closed. Discrimination on some other basis is not an Article 15 violation.

Article 15 also allows the state to make special provisions for groups that need them — women and children, socially and educationally backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and since the 103rd Amendment (2019), economically weaker sections.

Article 16 — Equal opportunity in public employment Every citizen has an equal chance at a government job. The state cannot reject an applicant on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth or residence.

Article 16 also permits reservation in appointments for backward classes that are not adequately represented in state services. Note the two extra grounds here that Article 15 does not have: descent and residence.

Article 17 — Abolition of untouchability Untouchability is abolished, and practising it in any form is a punishable offence. This article binds private individuals, not just the state — which is unusual, and deliberate.

Article 18 — Abolition of titles The state cannot confer titles on anyone, except military and academic distinctions. This was aimed at the British-era honours — Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur — which created a class of people ranked above ordinary citizens.

Article 19 — The six freedoms Every citizen has six freedoms: speech and expression, assembly (peaceful and unarmed), association, movement throughout India, residence anywhere in India, and profession, trade or business.

There were seven. The seventh was the freedom to acquire and dispose of property, removed in 1978 along with the Right to Property.

Each freedom comes with its own restrictions written into the same article. Free speech can be limited for public order, decency, defamation, contempt of court or state security. The restriction must be reasonable — a court will strike down one that goes too far.

Article 20 — Protection when accused Three protections for anyone facing criminal charges. No punishment under a later law. If an act was legal when you did it, a law passed afterwards cannot make you a criminal for it. No double jeopardy. You cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offence. No self-incrimination. You cannot be forced to give evidence against yourself.

Article 21 — Life and personal liberty The shortest article in Part III and the most important. No person may be deprived of life or personal liberty except by procedure established by law.

The text is brief, but the Supreme Court has read a great deal into it over the years — the right to live with dignity, to a livelihood, to a clean environment, to health, to shelter, to legal aid, to a speedy trial. In K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) the Court held that privacy is part of Article 21.

Article 21A was added by the 86th Amendment (2002). It makes free and compulsory education a Fundamental Right for children aged 6 to 14.

Article 22 — Protection against arrest If you are arrested in the ordinary way, you must be told why, allowed to consult a lawyer, and produced before a magistrate within 24 hours.

Preventive detention works differently. That is detention without trial, to stop something before it happens. Detention beyond three months requires clearance from an Advisory Board.

Article 23 — No trafficking or forced labour Trafficking in human beings, begar and other forms of forced labour are prohibited. Like Article 17, this binds private persons — a landlord holding a bonded labourer violates Article 23 directly.

Article 24 — No child labour No child below 14 may be employed in a factory, a mine, or any other hazardous work.

Article 25 — Freedom of conscience Every person may freely profess, practise and propagate religion. Propagate means you may spread your faith — but the Supreme Court has held this does not include a right to convert someone by force, fraud or inducement.

Article 26 — Managing religious affairs Every religious denomination may establish and maintain institutions, manage its own religious affairs, own property and administer it.

Article 27 — No religious taxes No one can be compelled to pay a tax whose proceeds go towards promoting any particular religion.

Article 28 — No religious instruction in state schools Institutions wholly funded by the state cannot provide religious instruction. Partly funded and private institutions have more latitude.

Article 29 — Protection of culture Any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture has the right to preserve it. Note the wording: any section of citizens, not only minorities.

Article 30 — Minority institutions All minorities, whether by religion or language, may establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Here the wording is minorities specifically — and that difference from Article 29 is exactly what examiners test.

Article 32 — Constitutional remedies A right you cannot enforce is only a promise. Article 32 lets any person move the Supreme Court directly — without going through a lower court first — whenever a Fundamental Right is violated. The Court can then issue any of five writs, covered in detail further down this page.

The idea of a written charter of rights came from the US Bill of Rights, but the Indian version differs in two ways. It is far more detailed — the American rights are stated in broad strokes, while Part III spells out exactly what is protected. And it comes with reasonable restrictions written into the text itself.

Free speech is guaranteed by Article 19 — but the same article allows the state to restrict it on grounds of public order, decency, defamation, contempt of court, and the security of the state. The right and its limits appear in the same breath.

The framers had just watched Partition. They did not want rights so absolute that they could not be balanced against social stability. So instead of writing unqualified rights and leaving courts to invent exceptions, they wrote the exceptions in.

Almost all Fundamental Rights are available against the State, not against private individuals.

If a government office refuses you a job because of your caste, that is a violation of Article 16. If a private person insults you, it is not a Fundamental Rights matter — it is ordinary law, dealt with by the ordinary courts.

Article 12 defines what “the State” means for this purpose, and it is wider than most people expect: the Government and Parliament of India, the Government and legislature of each state, all local authorities, and other authorities under government control. Courts have read “other authorities” to cover bodies like LIC, ONGC and public sector undertakings.

Three articles are exceptions, and they are exceptions precisely because the framers thought the social evils involved were too serious to leave to the state alone:

Some Fundamental Rights are available to everyone in India, including foreigners. Others belong to citizens alone. This split is asked constantly.

A right you cannot enforce is a promise, not a right. Article 32 is what turns the rest of Part III from a list of intentions into something a citizen can actually use.

It gives every person the right to move the Supreme Court directly — not through a lower court first — whenever a Fundamental Right is violated.

The Court enforces these rights through five writs — orders it can issue to compel or forbid specific action.

Fundamental Rights are not absolute even in normal times, and during a National Emergency the state gains further power over them.

• Article 19 is suspended automatically — but only when the Emergency is declared on grounds of war or external aggression, not internal armed rebellion
• The President may suspend the enforcement of other rights by order under Article 359
• Articles 20 and 21 can never be suspended, under any circumstances