Article 32: The Supreme Court's Writ Jurisdiction

In one line

Article 32 gives you the right to walk into the Supreme Court when a fundamental right is broken, and that right is itself a fundamental right.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Article 32 guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by Part III, empowers the Court to issue directions, orders or writs including the five named writs for that purpose, permits Parliament to empower another court to exercise those powers, and provides that the right shall not be suspended except as otherwise provided by the Constitution.

The provision itself

Article 32 reads:

"(1) The right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by this Part is guaranteed.

(2) The Supreme Court shall have power to issue directions or orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, whichever may be appropriate, for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by this Part.

(3) Without prejudice to the powers conferred on the Supreme Court by clauses (1) and (2), Parliament may by law empower any other court to exercise within the local limits of its jurisdiction all or any of the powers exercisable by the Supreme Court under clause (2).

(4) The right guaranteed by this article shall not be suspended except as otherwise provided for by this Constitution."

Clause by clause

"The right to move the Supreme Court is guaranteed." The guarantee is the key word. Article 32 is placed in Part III, so the right to the remedy is itself a fundamental right. That is why Kavalappara Kottarathil Kochuni v. State of Madras, AIR 1960 SC 1080, holds that the Court is bound to entertain a petition where a fundamental right is infringed and that the existence of another remedy is not by itself a ground for refusing relief, as it may be under Article 226.

"By appropriate proceedings." Not by a prescribed form. That is the textual room in which public interest litigation grew, because a letter can be an appropriate proceeding: Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 802.

"For the enforcement of the rights conferred by this Part." The limit. Article 32 is not available to enforce an ordinary legal right, a statutory right or a contractual right, and this is the sharpest difference from Article 226.

"Directions or orders or writs, including." Two consequences. The Court is not confined to the five writs; it may make any order that will enforce the right, which is the textual basis for compensation in Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar, AIR 1983 SC 1086, and for the continuing directions given in public interest cases. And it is not bound by the English technicalities of form: T.C. Basappa v. T. Nagappa, AIR 1954 SC 440, holds that an Indian court may issue an order in the nature of a writ so long as the broad and fundamental principles regulating it are observed.