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PETITIONER: GOVIND

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH & ANR.

DATE OF JUDGMENT18/03/1975

BENCH: MATHEW, KUTTYIL KURIEN BENCH: MATHEW, KUTTYIL KURIEN KRISHNAIYER, V.R. GOSWAMI, P.K.

CITATION:  1975 AIR 1378            1975 SCR  (3) 946  1975 SCC  (2) 148  CITATOR INFO :  RF         1981 SC 760  (5)  R          1982 SC 710  (21)

ACT: Madhya  Pradesh Police Regulations, 855 and 856, made  under s.  46  (2)(c) of Police Act, 1961--If  violative  of  Arts. 19(1) (d) and 21.

HEADNOTE: The  petitioner in a petition under Art. 32, challenged  the validity  of Regulations 855 and 856 of the  Madhya  Pradesh Police  Regulations made by the Government under the  Police Act,  1961.   Regulation 855 provides that where  on  infor- mation   the   District  Superintendent  believes   that   a particular  individual is leading a life of crime,  and  his conduct  shows a determination to lead a life of crime  that individual’s  name  may  be ordered to  be  entered  in  the surveillance register, and he would be placed under  regular surveillance.     Regulation   856   provides   that    such surveillance,  inter alia may consist of domiciliary  visits both  by day and night at frequent but irregular  intervals. It  was contended that, (1) the Regulations were not  framed under any provision of the Police Act, and (2) even if  they were  framed  tinder  s.  46(2)  of  the  Police  Act,   the provisions  regarding  domiciliary  visits  offended   Arts. 19(1)(d) and 21. Dismissing the petition, HELD : (1) The Regulations were framed under s. 46(2)(c)  of the  Police  Act and have the force of law.   The  paragraph provides that the State Government may make rules  generally for  giving effect to the provisions of the Act; and one  of the  objects  of  the Act is to prevent  the  commission  of crimes.   The  provision  regarding  domiciliary  visits  is intended  to prevent commission of offences, because,  their object is to see if the individual is at home or gone out of it for commission of offences. [949 F-G, H-950 A] (2) (a) Too broad a definition of privacy will raise serious questions  about  the propriety of judicial  reliance  on  a right  that is not explicit in the Constitution.  The  right to privacy will, therefore, necessarily, have to go  through a process of case by case development.  Hence, assuming that

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the  right  to personal liberty. the right  to  move  freely throughout  India  and  the  freedom  of  speech  create  an independent  fundamental  right of privacy as  an  emanation from  them it could not he absolute.  It must be subject  to restriction on the basis of compelling public interest.  But the  law  infringing it must satisfy  the  compelling  state interest test. [954 B-C, H-955 B; 956 B-C] (b)  Drastic  inroads directly into privacy  and  indirectly into fundamental right will be made if the Regulations  were to be read too widely.  When there are two  interpretations. one  wide and unconstitutional, and the other  narrower  but within constitutional bound,;, the Court will read down  the over  flowing expressions to make them valid. [955 D-E;  956 G] (c)  As the Regulations have force of law, the  petitioner’s fundamental right under Art. 21 is not violated. [955 H] (d)  It  cannot  be said that  surveillance  by  domiciliary visit-, would always be an unreasonable restriction upon the right  of privacy.  It is only persons who are suspected  to be habitual criminals and those who are determined to lead a criminal  life  that  are  Subjected  to  surveillance.   If ’crime’ in this context is confined to such acts as  involve public peace or security, the law imposing such a reasonable restriction must be upheld as valid. [956 C-D, F-H] [Legality  apart,  these  regulations  ill-accord  with  the essence  of personal freedoms and the State will do well  to revise these old Police Regulations.  Domiciliary visits and picketing  by the police should be reduced to  the  clearest cases  of community security and should not  become  routine follow  up at the end of a conviction or release from  jail, or at the whim of a police officer.] [957 A-C] 947 Kharak  Singh v. The State of U.P. & Ors., [1964]  1  S.C.R. 332,  Griswold v. Connecticut, 381, U.S. 479, 510; Jane  Roe v.  Henry Wade, 410 U.S. 113 and Olmstead v. United  States. 277 U.S. 438. 471. referred to.

JUDGMENT: ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 72 of 1970. Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. A. K. Gupta and R. A. Gupta for the Petitioner. Rant Punjwani, H. S. Parihar and I. N. Shroff, for the  Res- pondents. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by MATHEW,  J.  The  petitioner  is a  citizen  of  India.   He challenges  the validity of Regulations 855 and 856  of  the Madhya  Pradesh Police Regulations purporting to be made  by the  Government  of Madhya Pradesh under s.46(2)(c)  of  the Police Act, 1961. The  petitioner alleges that several false cases  have  been filed against him in criminal courts by the police but  that he was acquitted in all but two cases.  He says that on  the basis that he is a habitual criminal, the police have opened a  history sheet against him and that he has been put  under surveillance. The  petitioner says that the police are making  domiciliary visits both by day and by night at frequent intervals,  that they are secretly picketing his house and the approaches  to his house, that his movements are being watched by the patel of the village and that when the police come to the  village for  any purpose, he is called and harassed with the  result that  his reputation has sunk how in the estimation  of  his neighbours.  The petitioner submits that whenever he  leaves

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the  village  for  another place he has  to  report  to  the Chowkidar of the village or to the police station about  his departure and that he has to give further information  about his destination and the period within which he would return. The petitioner contends that these actions of the police are violative  of the fundamental right guaranteed to him  under Articles  19(1)(d) and 21 of the Constitution, and he  prays for  a declaration that Regulations 855 and 856 are void  as contravening   his  fundamental  rights  under   the   above Articles. In  the return filed, it is stated that "the petitioner  has managed  to  commit many crimes during the  period  1960  to 1969.  In the year 1962 the petitioner was convicted in  one case  under  Section  452 IPC and was  fined  Rs.  100/-  in default  rigorous imprisonment of two months and in  another case  he was convicted under Section 456 IPC and  was  fined Rs. 501- and in default rigorous imprisonment of one  month. In the year 1969 the petitioner was convicted under  Section 55/109  Cr.P.C. and was bound over for a period of one  year by  SDM,  Jatara.   In the year  1969,  the  petitioner  cot compounded   a  case  pending  against  him  under   Section 325/147/324 IPC.  Similarly, he also got another case  under Section 341/324 ][PC compounded." 948 The  case of the respondent in short is that the  petitioner is  a  dangerous  criminal whose conduct shows  that  he  is determined to lead a criminal life and that he was put under surveillance  in  order  to  prevent  him  from   committing offences.               Regulation 855 reads:               "855.  Surveillaance proper, as distinct  from               general  supervision, should be restricted  to               those  persons,  whether  or  not   previously               convicted, whose conduct shows a determination               to lead a life of crime.  The list of  persons               under               surveillance should include only those persons               who  are  believed  to  be  really   dangerous               criminals.   When  the entries  in  a  history               sheet,   or  any  other  information  at   his               disposal, leads the District Superintendent to               believe  that  a  particular  a  ndividual  is               leading a life of crime, he may order that his               name be entered in the surveillance  register.               The Circle Inspector will thereupon (open a ?)               history  sheet,  if  one  is  not  already  in               existence,  and the man will be  placed  under               regular surveillance."               Regulation 856 provides:               "856.    Surveillance   may,   for   practical               purposes,  be  defined as  consisting  of  the               following measures :               (a)  Thorough  periodical  enquiries  by   the               station-house  officer as to  repute,  habits,               association, income, expenses and occupation.               (b)  Domiciliary visits both by day and  night               at frequent but irregular intervals.               (c)   Secret  picketing  of  the   house   and               approaches   on   any   occasion   when    the               surveillance  (surveillant?) is found absent.               (d)  The  reporting by patels,  mukaddams  and               kotwars ,of movements and absences from home.               (e)  The  verification of such  movements  and               absences by means of bad character rolls.               (f)  The collection in a history sheet of  all

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             information bearing on conduct.               It  must be remembered that the surest way  of               driving a man to a life of crime is to prevent               him    from   earning   an   honest    living.               Surveillance  should, therefore, never  be  an               impediment to steady employment and should not               be made unnecessarily irksome or  humiliating.               The  person  under  surveillance  should,   if               possible   be  assisted  in   finding   steady               employment,   and  the  practice  of   warning               persons against employing him must be strongly               discouraged." 949 In  Kharak  Singh v. The State of U.P.  and  Others(1)  this Court  dad occasion to consider the validity  of  Regulation 236 of the U.P. Police Regulations which is in pari  materia with  Regulation 856 here.  There it was held by a  majority that regulation 236(b) providing for domiciliary visits  was unconstitutional  for  the  reason  that  it  abridged   the fundamental  right  of a person under Article 21  and  since Regulation  236(b)  did  not  have the  force  of  law,  the regulation  was declared bad.  The other provisions  of  the regulation  were  held to be constitutional.   Teh  decision that the regulation in question there was not taw was  based upon  a concession made on behalf of the State of U.P.  that the U.P. Police Regulations were not framed under any of the provisions of the Police Act. The  petitioner  submitted  that  as  the  regulations-   in question  here were also not framed under any  provision  of the Police Act, the provisions regarding domiciliary  visits in  regulations  855 and 856 must be declared bad  and  that even if the regulations were framed under s.46(2)(d) of  the Police  Act,  they  offended the fundamental  right  of  the petitioner  under Article 19(1)(d) as well as under  Article 21 of the Constitution. So  far as the first contention is concerned, we are of  the view  that the regulations were framed by the Government  of Madhya Pradesh under s.46(2) (c) of the Police Act.  Section 46(2)  states  that the State Government may, from  time  to time,  by notification in the official gazette,  make  rules consistent with the Act-               "(c)  generally,  for  giving  effect  to  the               provisions of this Act." The  petitioner  contended that rules can be framed  by  the State Government under s.46(2)(c) only for giving effect  to the  provisions  of  the  Act and  that  the  provisions  in Regulation 856 for domiciliary visits and other matters  are not  for  the  purpose  of  giving  effect  to  any  of  the provisions of the Police Act and therefore regulation 856 is ultra vires. We do not think that the contention is right.  There can  be no  doubt  that one of the objects of the Police Act  is  to prevent  commission  of offences.  The preamble to  the  Act states :               "Whereas  it is expedient to  re-organise  the               police  and  to  make  it  a  more   efficient               instrument for the prevention and detection of               crime." And, s. 23 of the Act (so far as it is material) reads               "It   shall  be  the  duty  of  every   police               officer.lll  .  to prevent the  commission  of               offences and public nuisances... ". We   think  that  the  provision  in  regulation   856   for domiciliary  visits  and  other actions  by  the  police  is intended to prevent the commission of offences.  The  object

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of domiciliary visits is to see that (1) [1964] 1 S.C.R. 332. 950 the person subjected to surveillance is in his home and  has not  gone out of it for commission of any offence.   We  are therefore  of opinion that Regulations 855 and 856 have  the force of law. The  next question is whether the provisions  of  regulation 856 offend any of the fundamental rights of the petitioner. In  Kharak Singh v. The State of U.P. & Others  (supra)  the majority  said  that  ’personal liberty’ in  Article  21  is comprehensive to include all varieties of rights which go to make up the personal liberty of a man other than those dealt with  in  Article 19(1)(d).  According to the  Court,  while Article 19(1)(d) deals with the particular types of personal freedom,  Article  21 takes in and deals with  the  residue. The Court said               "We have already extracted a passage from  the               judgment  of  Field  J. in  Munn  v.  Illinois               (1877)  94  U.S. 113, 142, where  the  learned               Judge pointed out the,,, ’life’ in the 5th and               14th  Amendments  of  the  U.S.   Constitution               corresponding to Art. 21 means not merely  the               right to the continuance of a person’s  animal               existence,  but a right to the  possession  of               each of his organs-his arms and legs etc.   We               do  not  entertain  any doubt  that  the  word               ’life’   in   Art.   21   bear,.,   the   same               signification.   Is  then the  word  ’personal               liberty’ to be construed as excluding from its               purview an invasion on the part of the  police               of  the  sanctity  of  a  man’s  home  and  an               intrusion  into his personal security and  his               right to sleep which is the normal comfort and               a dire neecessity for human existence even  as               an animal ? It might" not be in appropriate to               refer here to the words of the preamble to the               Constitution  that it is designed to,  "assure               the  dignity of the individual" and  therefore               of those cherished human value as the means of               ensuring  his full development and  evolution.               We  are referring to these objectives ,of  the               framers  merely  to  draw  attention  to   the               concepts  underlying  the  constitution  which               would  point to such vital words as  ’personal               liberty’   having   to  be  construed   in   a               reasonable  manner and to be  attributed  that               sense  which would promote and  achieve  those               objectives  and  by no means  to  stretch  the               meaning  of  the  phrase to  square  with  any               preconceived     notions    or     doctrinaire               constitutional theories. The  Court  then  quoted  a passage  from  the  judgment  of Frankfurter  J. in Wolf v. Coloradol(1) to the  effect  that the security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police is basic to a free society and that the knock  at the  door,  whether by day or by night, as a  prelude  to  a search,  without  authority  of  law’  but  solely  on   the authority  of  the Police, did not need  the  commentary  of recent  history  to be condemned  as  inconsistent-with  the conception of human rights enshrined in the history and  the basic constitutional documents of English-speaking  peoples. The Court then said that at Common Law every man’s- house is his castle and that embodies an abiding (1) [1949] 338 U.S. 25.

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951 principle  transcending mere protection of  property  rights and expounds a concept of ’personal liberty’ which does  not rest upon any element of feudalism or any theory of  freedom which has ceased to exist.  The Court ultimately came to the conclusion   that   regulation   236(b)   which   authorised domiciliary visits was violative of Article 21 and "as there is  no  ’law’  on  the basis of  which  the  same  could  be justified, it must be struck down as unconstitutional".  The Court  was  of  the  view  that  the  other  provisions   in regulation 236 were not bad as no right of privacy has  been guaranteed by the Constitution. Subba  Rao, J. writing for the minority was of  the  opinion that  the  word ’liberty’ in Article  21  was  comprehensive enough to include privacy also.  He said that although it is true our Constitution does not expressly declare a right  to privacy  as  a  fundamental  right,  but  the  right  is  an essential  ingredient of personal liberty, that in the  last resort, a person’s house where he lives with his family,  is his  ’castle’s that nothing is more deleterious to  a  man’s physical happiness and health than a calculated interference with  his  privacy and that all ,,he  acts  of  surveillance under  Regulation 236 infringe the fundamental right of  the petitioner  under  Article 21 of the  Constitution.   And,as regards Article 19(1)(d), he was of the view that that right also  Was violated.  He said that the right under that  sub- Article  is  not  mere  freedom  to  move  without  physical obstruction   and   observed   that   movement   under   the scrutinizing gaze of the policemen cannot be free  movement, that the freedom of movement in cl. (d) therefore must be  a movement in a free country, i.e., in a country where he  can do  whatever  he likes, speak to whomsoever he  wants,  meet people  of his own choice without any apprehension,  subject of  course  to the law of social control and that  a  person under  the shadow of surveillance is certainly  deprived  of this  freedom.  He concluded by say in that Surveillance  by domiciliary visits and other acts is -an abridgement of  the fundamental  right  guaranteed under Article 19  (1)(i)  and under  Article 19(1) (a).  He however did  not  specifically consider  whether  regulation 236 could be  justified  as  a reasonable  restriction  in public interest  falling  within Article 19(5). It  was submitted on behalf of the petitioner that right  to privacy is itself a fundamental right and that that right is violated  as regulation 856 provides for domiciliary  visits and other incursions into it.  The question whether right to privacy is itself a fundamental right ’lowing from the other fundamental rights guaranteed to a citizen under Part III is not easy of solution. In  Griswold v. Connecticut(1), a Connecticut  statute  made the use of contraceptives a criminal offence.  The executive and  medical directors of the Planned Parenthood  League  of Connecticut were convicted in the Circuit Court on a  charge of  having  violated the statute as  accessories  by  giving information, instruction and advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception.  The appellate  Division of the Circuit Court affirmed and its judgment was ’affirmed by  the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.   On  appeal the (1) 381 U. S. 479, 510. 952 Supreme Court of the United States reversed.  In an  opinion by  Douglas,  J.,  expressing view of five  members  of  the Court,  it  was  held that the statute  was  invalid  as  an unconstitutional invasion of the right of privacy of married

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persons.  He said that the right of freedom of speech  press includes  not only the right to utter or to print  but  also the  right to disribute, the right to receive, the right  to read  and that without those peripheral rights the  specific right  would  be less secure and that  likewise,  the  other specific  guarantees in the Bill of Rights  have  penumbras, formed  by emanations from those guarantees that  help  give them life and substance, that the various guarantees  create zones   of   privacy,  aid  that  protection   against   all governmental  invasion "of the sanctity of a man’s home  and the  privacies  of life" was fundamental.  He  further  said that  the inquiry is whether a right involed "is ’of such  a character that it cannot -be -denied without violating those ’fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie  at the  base of all our civil and political  institutions’  and that  ’privacy  is a fundamental personal  right,  emanating from  the totality of the constitutional scheme under  which we (Americans) live. In  his  dissenting opinion, Mr. Justice Black  berated  the majority for discovering and applying a constitutional right to  privacy.   His  reading of the  Constitution  failed  to uncover  any provision or provisions forbidding the  passage of any law that might abridge the ’privacy’ of individuals. In  Jane Roe v. Henry Wade("), an unmarried  pregnant  woman who wished to terminate her pregnancy by abortion instituted an action in the United State strict Court for the  Northern District  of Texas, seeking a declaratory judgment that  the Texas criminal abortion statutes, which prohibited abortions except  with  respect  to those  procured  or  attempted  by medical  advice  for the purpose of saving the life  of  the mother, were unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court said  that although the Constitution of the U.S.A. does not  explicitly mention  any  right of privacy, the  United  States  Supreme Court  recognizes  that a right of personal  privacy,  or  a guarantee  of certain areas or zones of privacy, does  exist under  the Constitution, and "that the roots of  that  right may be found in the First Amendment, in the Fourth and  Fif, Amendments.  in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, in  the ninth Amendment, and in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment" and that  the "right to privacy is not absolute", The usual starting point in any discussion of the growth  of legal concept of privacy, though not necessarily the correct one, is the famous article,"The  Right  to  Privacy"   by Charles  Warren  and Louis D. Brandeis  (2).What  was  truly creative in the article was their insistence thatprivacy,- the right to be let alone-was an interest that man should be able  to  assert  directly and  not  derivatively  from  his efforts  to  protect  other  interests.   To  Protect  man’s "inviolate  Personality" against the intrusive behaviour  so increasingly evident (1) 410 U. S. 113. (2) See 4 Harvard Law Rev. 193. 953 in  their  time, Warren and Brandeis thought  that  the  law should  provide  both a criminal and a private  law  remedy. "Once  a  civilization has made a  distinction  between  the ’outer’  and the ’inner’ man, between the life of  the  soul and  the  life of the body, between the  spiritual  and  the materials  between the sacred and the profane,  between  the realm  of  God and the realm of Caesar, between  Church  and state,  between rights inherent and inalienable  and  rights that  are in the power of government to give and take  away, between public and private, between society and solitude, it becomes impossible to avoid the idea of privacy by  whatever

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name it may be called- the idea of a ’private space in which man may become and remain ’himself"(11). There  can be no doubt that the makers of  our  Constitution wanted  to  ensure conditions favourable to the  pursuit  of happiness.  They certainly realized as Brandeis, J. said  in his dissent in Olmstead v. United State(2) the  significance of  man’s  spiritual  nature. of his  feelings  and  of  his intellect  and  that  only a part  of  the  pain,  pleasure, satisfication  of life can be found in material  things  and therefore  they  must be deemed to have conferred  upon  the individual  as  against  the government a  sphere  where  he should be let alone. "The  liberal  individualist  tradition  has  stressed,   in particular,   three  personal  ideals,  to  each  of   which corresponds a range of ’private affairs’.  The first is  the ideal  of personal relations; the second, the Lockean  ideal of  the  politically  free  man  in  a  minimally  regulated society;  the  third,  the  Kantian  ideal  of  the  morally autonomous  man,  acting on principles that  he  accepts  as rational"(8). There can be no doubt that privacy-dignity claims deserve to be  examined  with  care  and to  be  denied  only  when  an important  countervailing interest is shown to be  superior. If the Court does find that aclaimed  right is entitled  to protection  as a fundamental privacy right,a law  infringing it must satisfy the compelling state interest test. Then the  question would be whether a state interest is  of  such paramount importance as would justify an infringement of the right.  Obviously, if the enforcement of morality were  held to be a compelling as well as a permissible state  interest, the  characterization of a claimed rights as  a  fundamental privacy  right  would  be of  far  less  significance.   The question  whether  enforcement of morality  is  a  interest- sufficient  to  justify the infringement  of  a  fundamental right  need not be considered for the purpose of  this  case and  therefore we refuse to enter the controversial  thicket whether enforcement of morality is a function of state. Individual  autonomy,  perhaps the central  concern  of  any system of limited government, is protected in part under our Constitution by (1)  see "privacy and the Law: A philosophical  prelude"  by Milton  R. Konvitz in 31 Law & Contemporary Problems  (1966) p. 272, 273. (2) 277 U. S. 438, 471. (3) see Benn, "Privacy, Freedom and Respect for Persons"  in J. Pennock & J. Chapman, Eds., Privacy Nomos XIII, 115-16. 954 explicit constitutional guarantees.  "In the application  of the  Constitution our contemplation cannot only be  of  what has  been  but what may be." Time works changes  and  brings into existence new condition Subtler and far reaching  means of  invadings privacy will make it possible to be  heard  in the  street what is whispered in the closet.  Yes too  broad a, definition of privacy raises serious questions about this propriety  of  judicial  reliance on a  right  that  is  not explicit  in the Constitution of course,  privacy  primarily concerns  the  individuals.   I  therefore  relates  to  and overlaps  with  the concept,of liberty.   The  most  serious advocate  of  privacy must confess that there  are.  serious problems  of  defining the essence and scope of  the  right. Privacy  interest  in autonomy must also be  placed  in  the context of other right and values. Any right to privacy must encompass and protect the personal intimacies  of  the home, the family  marriage,  motherhood, procreation .and child rearing.  This catalogue approach  to

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the question is obviously .not as instructive as it does not give analytical picture of that distinctive  characteristics of the right of privacy.  Perhaps, the only suggestion  that can be offered as unifying principle underlying the  concept has  been  the  assertion that a claimed  right  must  be  a fundamental  right  implicit  in  the  concept  of   ordered liberty. Rights  and  freedoms  of  citizens are  set  forth  in  the Constitution in order’ to guarantee that the individual, his personality  and those things stamped. with his  personality shall  be  free from official interference  except  where  a reasonable  basis  for intrusion exists.   ’Liberty  against government"  a phrase coined by Professor  Corwin  expresses this   idea  forcefully.   In  this  sense,  many   of   the fundamental   rights  of  citizens  can  be   described   as contributing to the right to privacy. As  Ely says : "There is nothing to prevent one  from  using the  word privacy’: to mean, the freedom to live one’s  life without governmental interference.  But the Court  obviously does not so use the term.  Nor could it for such a right  is at stake in every case"(") There  are two possible theories for protecting  privacy  of home  The first is that activities in the home  harm  others only  to the extent that they cause offence  resulting  from the  mere  thought that individuals might engaging  in  such activities   that  such’  harm’  is   not   constitutionally protectible  by the state.  The second is that  individual,, need  a  place  of sanctuary where they  can  be  free  from societal control The importance of such a sanctuary is  that individuals  can  drop  the mask. desist for  a  while  from projecting  on the world the lmage they want to be  accepted as themselves, an image that may,reflect the values of their peers rather than the realities of their natures (2). The  right to privacy in any event will necessarily have  to go through a process of case-by se ’development.  Therefore, even assuming, (1)  see  "The  Wages of Crying Wolf: A Commert  on  Roe  v. Wade, 82 Yale L.    J. 920, 932. (2) see 26 Standford Law Rev.  1161 at 1187. 955 that the right to personal liberty, the right to move freely throughout the territory of India and the freedom  of speech create an independent right of privacy as an emanation  from them  which one can characterize as a fundamental right,  we do not think that the right is absolute. The European Convention on Human   Rights, which came  Into, force \on 3-9-1953, represents a valiant     attempt      to tackle the new problem. Article 8 of the Convention is worth citing:(1).               "1. Everyone has the right to  respect for his               private  andfamily  life,  his  home  and  his               correspondence.               "2. There shall be no interference by a public               authority  with  the exercise  of  this  right               except  such as is in accordance with the  law               and  is necessary in a democratic  society  in               the  interests  of national  security,  public               safety  or  the  economic  well-being  of  the               country,  for  the prevention of  disorder  or               crime, for the protection of health or  morals               or  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  and               freedoms of others." Having  reached  this  conclusion,  we  are  satisfied  that drastic  inroads  directly into the privacy  and  indirectly into  the fundamental. rights, of a citizen will be made  if

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Regulations  855  and  856  were  to  be  read  widely.   To interpret  the  rule  ’m harmony with  the  Constitution  is therefore necessary and canalisation of the powers vested in the  police  by  the two Regulations  earlier  read  becomes necessary,  if  they are to be saved at all.   Our  founding fathers  were thoroughly opposed to a Police Rajeven as  our history  of  the  struggle for freedom  has  borne  eloquent testimony to it.  The relevant Articles of the  Constitution we  have adverted to earlier, behave us therefore to  narrow down the scope for play of the two Regulations.  We  proceed to give direction and restriction to the application of  the said  regulations with the caveat that if any   action  were taken  beyond  the boundaries so set, the citizen  will  be, entitled to attack such action as-unconstitutional and void. Depending  on  the character and antecedents,of  the  person subjected  to  surveillance  as also  the  objects  and  the limitation  under which surveillance is made, it  cannot  be said  surveillance  by domiciliary visits. would  always  be unreasonable restriction upon the right of privacy. Assuming that the fundamental rights explicitly guaranteed to a citi- zen  have penumbral zones and that the right to  privacy  is itself  a fundamental right, that fundamental right must  be subject  to  restriction on the basis of  compelling  public interest  As regulation 856 has the force of law, it  cannot be said that the fundamental right of, the petitioner  under Article 21 has been violated by the provisions contained  in it  for, what is guaranteed under’ that Article is  that  no person  shall  he deprived of his life or  personal  liberty except by the (1)  see  "Privacy- Human Rights", ed.  A. H.  Robertson  p. 176. 956 procedure  established  by ’law’.       We  think  that  the procedure  is reasonable having regard to the provisions  of Regulations  853 (C) and 857.  Even if we hold that  Article 19(1)(d)  guarantees to a citizen a right to privacy in  his movement  as an emanation from that Article and is itself  a fundamental   right,   the  question  will   arise   whether regulation  856 is a law imposing reasonable restriction  in public  interest on the freedom of movement  falling  within Article 19 (5); or, even if it be assumed that Article 19(5) does not apply in terms, as the right to privacy of movement cannot  be absolute, a law imposing  reasonable  restriction upon  it for compelling interest of State must be upheld  as valid. Under  clause (c) of Regulation 853, it is only persons  who are suspected to be habitual criminals who will be subjected to domiciliary visits.  Regulation 857 provides as follows:               "A comparatively short period of surveillance,               if  effectively  maintained,  should   suffice               either to show that the suspicion of  criminal               livelihood   was  unfounded,  or  to   furnish               evidence justifying a criminal prosecution, or               action under the security sections.   District               Superintendents and their assistance should go               carefully  through  the histories  of  persons               under  surveillance during their  inspections,               and remove from the register the names of such               as appear to be earning an honest  livelihood.               Their histories will there upon be closed  and               surveillance  discontinued.   In the  case  of               person  under surveillance, who has been  lost               sight of and is still untraced, the name  will               continue  on the register for as long  as  the               District Superintendent considers necessary."

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Surveillance  is  also  confined to  the  limited  class  of citizens who are determined to lead a criminal life or whose antecedents  would  reasonably lead to the  conclusion  that they will lead such a life. When   there   are  two  interpretations,   one   wide   and unconstitutional,    the   other   narrower    but    within constitutional  bounds,  this  Court  will  read  down   the overflowing  expressions to make them valid.  So  read,  the two  regulations  are more restricted than counsel  for  the petitioner  sought to impress upon us.  Regulation  855,  in our view, empowers surveillance only of persons against whom reasonable  materials exist to induce the opinion that  they show  a determination, to lead it life of criminal  in  this context  being confined to such as involve public  peace  or security  only  and if they are  dangerous  security  risks. Mere  Convictions  in criminal cases where  nothing  gravely imperilling saftey of 957 society cannot be regarded as warranting surveillance  under this   Regulation.    Similarly,  domiciliary   visits   and picketing  by the police should be reduced to  the  clearest cases  of  danger  to community  security  and  not  routine follow-up at the end of a conviction or release from  prison or  at  the whim of a police officer.   In  truth,  legality apart,  these  regulations ill-accord with  the  essence  of personal freedoms and the State will do well to revise  the- se   old   police  regulations   verging   perilously   near unconstitutionality. With  these  hopeful  abservations,  we  dismiss  the   writ petition. V. P. S.                         Petition dismissed. 958