How Fundamental Rights Apply in Practice in India

Part III of the Indian Constitution, Articles 12 to 35, contains the Fundamental Rights — a set of constitutionally guaranteed protections against state action that form the most directly enforceable provisions of the document. 

These rights — to equality, freedom, protection against exploitation, freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, and constitutional remedies — are justiciable: any person whose fundamental right is violated may approach the Supreme Court directly under Article 32, described by Dr. Ambedkar as "the heart and soul of the Constitution," or approach a High Court under Article 226. This direct enforceability makes Fundamental Rights categorically different from the non-justiciable Directive Principles of Part IV: they are not aspirations but legally actionable obligations on the state.

Representational Image: How Fundamental Rights Apply in Practice in India

The scope of fundamental rights has been dramatically expanded through judicial interpretation since 1978, when the Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India held that the "procedure established by law" in Article 21 must be fair, just, and reasonable — not merely formally enacted. The court subsequently read into the right to life protections including education, health, livelihood, clean environment, privacy, dignity, and shelter. Articles 14 (equality), 19 (freedoms), and 21 (life and liberty) are known as the "golden triangle" of the Constitution: the court has held these three must be read together, so that any restriction on liberty must also pass the tests of equality and reasonableness. 

What the Constitution says about fundamental rights and what happens to them in practice, however, are two distinct stories shaped by access to courts, police compliance, judicial backlog, and social position.

What You Need to Know

• There are six categories of fundamental rights: right to equality (Articles 14–18); right to freedom (Articles 19–22); right against exploitation (Articles 23–24); right to freedom of religion (Articles 25–28); cultural and educational rights (Articles 29–30); right to constitutional remedies (Article 32).
• The right under Article 32 — to approach the Supreme Court directly for enforcement of fundamental rights — is itself a fundamental right and cannot be suspended except during a national emergency; the 44th Constitutional Amendment (1978) ensured that Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended even during emergencies.
• Articles 14, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, and 28 are available to non-citizens as well as citizens; Article 19's six freedoms (speech, assembly, movement, etc.) are available only to citizens.
• The Supreme Court in Kaushal Kishor v. State of U.P. (2023) held that fundamental rights under Articles 19 and 21 can be enforced even against private persons and entities, not just the state — a significant expansion of horizontal application of constitutional rights.
• The right to education (Article 21-A, inserted by the 86th Amendment in 2002) makes elementary education a fundamental right for children aged 6–14, implemented through the Right to Education Act, 2009; this is the most recent formal addition to the fundamental rights catalogue.

How It Works in Practice

1. Equality before law (Article 14): The equality guarantee prohibits arbitrary state action and requires that any classification in law must have a rational nexus with the law's purpose. Courts have used Article 14 to strike down arbitrary dismissals from government service, discriminatory licensing decisions, differential treatment in welfare schemes, and laws that fail the test of reasonable classification. The provision is available to corporations and non-citizens in addition to individual citizens.

2. Freedom of speech and expression (Article 19(1)(a)): The freedom of speech is subject to "reasonable restrictions" in the interests of sovereignty and integrity of India, security of state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency, morality, contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offence. The word "reasonable" is judicially supervised: courts have struck down restrictions they found unreasonable, though the standard of review has varied. The right to information, right to know, right to advertise, and right to broadcast are among the specific rights read into Article 19(1)(a) by the court.

3. Right to life (Article 21): The most expansively interpreted fundamental right. The Supreme Court has read into Article 21 protections including: right to live with dignity; right to health; right to legal aid; right to speedy trial; right to a clean environment; right to privacy (Puttaswamy, 2017); right to livelihood; right against solitary confinement and handcuffing; right to education (now Article 21-A); and, most recently, a right against the adverse effects of climate change (2024). Each of these expansions creates an enforceable constitutional obligation.

4. The gap between right and remedy: Formal constitutional protection and practical enforcement are different things. Undertrial prisoners whose Article 21 right to speedy trial is violated have a constitutional claim but face a backlogged court system; individuals whose Article 14 equality rights are violated by petty officials face costs and delays in pursuing redress; those whose Article 19 speech rights are restricted by police action may face arrest before a court can intervene. The constitutional right is real; its practical vindication depends on access, resources, and institutional capacity.

5. Anti-defection and fundamental rights: The Supreme Court in Kihoto Hollohan (1992) held that the Tenth Schedule's anti-defection provisions do not violate fundamental rights including freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) — legislators exercising their vote in Parliament or state assemblies are not "citizens" in the sense relevant to Article 19, and the restrictions are "reasonable." This is the one significant area where fundamental rights expressly yield to democratic stability concerns.

What People Often Misunderstand

• Fundamental rights bind the state, not (historically) private actors: Until the Kaushal Kishor judgment of 2023, the dominant position was that fundamental rights applied only against the state or its instrumentalities; the 2023 decision extending Articles 19 and 21 horizontally to private persons is a significant and contested development.
• Some rights are absolute; most are qualified: The right against untouchability (Article 17) and the right against trafficking and forced labour (Articles 23–24) are absolute — no restriction is permitted. Most other fundamental rights, including speech and movement, are subject to reasonable restrictions.
• The right to property is no longer a fundamental right: Removed by the 44th Amendment (1978) from the fundamental rights chapter and placed in Article 300A as a constitutional right enforceable by ordinary courts rather than through Article 32 writ jurisdiction — an important distinction affecting how property disputes are litigated.
• Suspension during emergencies is limited but real: Article 19 rights can be suspended during a national emergency on grounds of external aggression; Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended at any time — a protection inserted after the Emergency-era experience.
• Directive Principles, though non-justiciable, shape fundamental rights interpretation: Courts have read DPSP provisions into Articles 14, 19, and 21 through interpretation; the right to health, for example, draws on both Article 21 and Article 47 (DPSP on improvement of public health); the formal non-justiciability of DPSP does not make it constitutionally irrelevant.

What Changes Over Time

The 2017 Puttaswamy privacy judgment added privacy to the fundamental rights catalogue through interpretation of Article 21 — the single most significant rights expansion in decades. The right against climate change impacts, recognised by the Supreme Court in 2024, extends Article 21 into a new domain with potential implications for environmental and infrastructure policy. 

The implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 marks Parliament's first attempt to legislate the privacy right recognised in Puttaswamy — moving a judicially created fundamental right into statutory form.

Sources and Further Reading

• Drishti IAS — Fundamental Rights (Part 1): https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/Paper2/fundamental-rights-part-1
• Constitution of India — Articles 12–35: https://indiankanoon.org
• LexCounsel — Fundamental Rights Enforceable Against Private Persons: https://lexcounsel.in/newsletters/fundamental-rights-under-article-19-and-21-of-the-constitution-can-be-enforced-even-against-persons-other-than-the-state-or-its-instrumentalities/
• Supreme Court Observer: https://www.scobserver.in

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