Author: Roshni Ravindra Chandewal

Introduction

The criminal justice apparatus of India, a vestige of colonial provenance refashioned through post-independence constitutional imperatives, confronts a juncture of profound exigency as of November 2025. With an aggregate of over five crore cases languishing in judicial repositories, custodial institutions operating at 131% capacity—wherein undertrial detainees comprise approximately 77% of the incarcerated populace—and adjudicatory delays extending across decades, the system frequently transmutes justice into an instrument of prolonged affliction. This systemic infirmity impugns not administrative lapses alone but the quintessential constitutional assurances enshrined in Articles 20, 21, and 22 of the Constitution of India—immunities against retrospective penalisation, iterated prosecutions, compelled testimonial inculpation, capricious abridgement of life and personal liberty, and unfettered apprehensions and confinements. Constituting the “golden triangle” of fundamental rights, these provisions were conceived as ramparts against state aggrandisement, transmuting the retributive mechanism from an apparatus of imperial subjugation to one predicated on humane rectitude.

Nevertheless, amidst the nascent tribulations attendant upon the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA)—promulgated in 2023 and effectuated from 1 July 2024—cogent interrogations persist: Do these enactments buttress or attenuate the aforementioned safeguards? The novelties proffer temporal strictures for inquisitorial and adjudicative processes, registration of cognizance without territorial circumscription, and protocols for electronic evidentiary admissibility, ostensibly to accelerate dispensation. Implementation vicissitudes, encompassing inadequately capacitated constabularies and obdurate refusals of interim release, have, however, exacerbated susceptibilities, disproportionately afflicting marginalised strata. In Union of India v. Kanhaiya Prasad (2025), the Supreme Court deprecated “selective constitutionalism” in interim release adjudications, underscoring the schism in Article 21’s mandate for expeditious adjudication.

The instant disquisition dissects the interface between criminal justice ameliorations and Articles 20-22, contending that whilst legislative animus inclines toward amelioration, institutional torpor and hermeneutic dissonances perpetuate inequity. Invoking doctrinal phylogeny, seminal precedents, and empirical contours of 2025, it impugns the fidelity of the emergent dispensation to constitutional sinews and proffers a blueprint for integral revitalisation. Imperilled is not procedural celerity merely, but the essence of a polity avowing liberty to every denizen, lest “justice deferred” devolve into “justice abnegated” for the indigent.

This exposition proceeds seriatim: the historical alembic engendering these protections; a meticulous exegesis of Articles 20-22; preeminent judicial interventions; the 2024 ameliorations’ avowals and lacunae; contemporaneous exigencies; and prospective delineations. In an epoch wherein technological convergence intersects with autocratic propensities—exempli gratia, algorithmic surveillance impugning Article 21 privacy—amelioration must transcend superficiality toward metamorphosis.

Historical Evolution: From Colonial Fetters to Constitutional Emancipation

The antecedents of India’s criminal justice edifice are inextricably interred in the British Raj, wherein the Indian Penal Code (IPC, 1860), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC, 1898), and Indian Evidence Act (1872) were sculpted not for equitableness but for dominion. Engineered to quell insurgency—witness the sedition proviso deployed against satyagrahis—these statutes privileged state preservation over personal decorum, embodying a “pre-emptive” rather than vindicatory paradigm. Apprehensions devoid of judicial warrant, perpetual sequestrations, and extorted avowals were de rigueur, unencumbered by due process conceits.

The Constituent Assembly, convened amid Partition’s cataclysm in 1946-1949, repudiated this patrimony. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, presiding over the Drafting Committee, imbued Part III with luminaries of the Enlightenment and Gandhian humanism, elevating Articles 20-22 as non-derogable imperatives, impervious even to exigency suspensions (barring subsequent attenuations via the 44th Amendment). Article 20 proscribed retroactive criminality, resonant with jus naturale; Article 21 amalgamated “procedure established by law” with Anglo-American due process post-Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978); Article 22 restrained arbitrary seizures, enjoining disclosure of predicates and procedural bulwarks. These were no peripheral appurtenances—deliberations pivoted upon equilibrating security with autonomy, Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar cautioning against “police despotism.”

Post-enactment in 1950, the colonial carapace endured, laid bare during the 1975 Emergency. Indira Gandhi’s dispensation abrogated habeas corpus, interning multitudes under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), infringing Article 22. The Shah Commission (1978) chronicled atrocities: torment, familial dislocations, judicial acquiescence. This nadir precipitated the 44th Amendment (1978), reinstating Article 21’s inviolability and constricting emergency invocations.

The 1980s-1990s witnessed judicial efflorescence. Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979) illuminated Bihar’s “instruments of torture” posing as gaols, wherein undertrials vegetated sans adjudication, engendering the celerity of trial entitlement under Article 21. D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) ordained apprehension protocols, mitigating custodial fatalities exceeding 1,000 annually by the 1990s. Legislative inertia persisted: the Malimath Committee (2003) advocated victim-oriented pivots, yet Parliament procrastinated until the 2023 transmutation.

By 2025, historical resonances unsettle. The novelties abrogate colonial relics—sedition transfigures into “endangerment of sovereignty” under BNS Section 152—yet harbour ambiguities evoking antecedent despotisms, such as elongated police custodies (unto 90 days). As carceral facilities burgeon to 5.5 lakh detainee’s contra a 4.25 lakh sinew, the trajectory from thraldom to liberation arcs languidly, exacting assiduous custodianship.

Doctrinal Foundations and Judicial Interventions: Exegesis and Catalysts

Article 20: Immunities Against Retrospective Oppression

Article 20(1) erects a chronological bastion: (a) proscription of ex post facto enactments aggravating sanctions; (b) interdiction of double peril; (c) embargo on coerced self-implication. Anchored in Calder v. Bull (1798) and England’s Bill of Rights (1689), it assures foreseeability in delictual liability, forestalling state recidivism.

The ex post facto interdict nullifies statutes intensifying penalties post-delict, as in Kedar Nath v. State of West Bengal (1953), wherein the Court insulated against IPC emendations. Double jeopardy, pursuant to Article 20(2), precludes re-adjudications for identical delicts post-absolution or conviction, albeit subtleties obtain: Maqbool Hussain v. State of Bombay (1953) circumscribed it to “judicial proceedings,” excluding fiscal forfeitures—a tenet impugned for enfeebling protections. Self-implication under 20(3)—”no person accused… shall be compelled to be a witness against himself”—metamorphosed from testimonial coercion to ampler aegides. Selvi v. State of Karnataka (2010) proscribed narco-analytic and polygraphic impositions as violative, yet 2025’s evidentiary forensics under BSA conjure compelled biometric spectres.

Pivotal, Article 20 constrains legislatures, not executives—yet perversion via ordinances (e.g., UAPA codicils) assays its robustness. Reformatorily, it compels prospective statutes, consonant with Directive Principles’ Article 39A for paripassu justice.

Article 21: The Expansive Redoubt of Vitality and Autonomy

No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” Prima facie literal, A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras (1950) confined it to corporeal restraint, upholding pre-emptive sequestration. Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) transfigured it, infusing “due process” through Articles 14 and 19 confluences: procedure must be equitable, rational, non-arbitrary.

Article 21’s amplitude subsumes celeritous adjudication (Hussainara Khatoon), confidentiality (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, 2017), decorum (Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi, 1981), and ecological viability (Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar, 1991). In the criminal ambit, it ordains interim release as norm, not anomaly (Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, 1980), and execrates undertrial limbo. Contemporaneously, Vikas Kanjad v. State of U.P. (October 2025) equilibrated delictual antecedents against release, affirming Article 21’s precedence over conjectural recidivism.

Vicissitudes proliferate: inexplorate inquisitorial laggards vitiate indictments as Article 21 infractions, per a November 2025 adjudication decrying “decennial obscurities.” Amelioration must embed this breadth, lest procedure devolve into perpetual pretext.

Article 22: Constraints on Seizure and Sequestration

Article 22 moderates’ executive ardour: (1) entitlement to apprehension predicates; (2) conferral with/proffering of counsel; (3) pre-emptive sequestration termini (three months absent Advisory Board scrutiny); (4-7) procedural imperatives for sequestrations. Countervailing Gopalan’s obeisance, it burgeoned into syncretic examen.

Joginder Kumar v. State of U.P. (1994) posited apprehensions as exceptionality, spawning Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) rubrics against rote sequestrations for delicts under septennial maxima. Article 22(4)’s Board inquisition, oft perfunctory, confronts 2025 assay amid UAPA’s “solitary” norm, impugned as decorum-eroding. BNSS’s electronic intimation of apprehension genuflects thereto, albeit infrastructural disparities attenuate it.

Doctrinally, Articles 20-22 interlace: self-implication adjoins seizure entitlements, celerity to autonomy. Their non-suspensible nucleus (Article 359(1) proviso) amid exigencies underscores sanctity. As Protection of Life and Personal Liberty (October 2025) postulates, they constitute the “bedrock” of criminal dispensation, exacting unremitting vigil.

Judicial ministrations, as constitutional custodians, have recurrently invoked these sinews to engender metamorphosis. Hussainara Khatoon (1979-1980) quaked the edifice: unmasking 40,000 Bihar undertrials, it decreed adjudicative celerity as Article 21’s pith, directing liberations for biennial detainees. This catalysed juridical succour mandates under Article 39A, informing the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.

D.K. Basu (1997) redressed custodial ferocity—exceeding 1,300 annual fatalities—prescribing eleven rubrics: apprehension memorandum, kin notification, medico-examination. Non-observance invites contumacy, yet 2025 dispatches evince perdurance, NHRC cataloguing 1,850 custodial demises in 2024.

Arnesh Kumar (2014) impugned Section 498A perversions, interdicting apprehensions absent magisterial sanction for minor delicts, equilibrating complainant prerogatives with accused immunities. In confidentiality’s demesne, Selvi (2010) fortified Article 20(3), embargoing involuntary “veracity elixirs” as psychic torment.

Interim release caselaw orbits Sibbia (1980), repudiating exceptionality, but Kanhaiya Prasad (2025) censures “eccentric constitutionalism” wherein presumptive innocent’s macerate. October 2025’s Supreme Court on Framing Charges assays inveterate delays, yoking pendency to Article 21 attenuation, enjoining temporal bounds. Subordinate tribunals amplify: Bombay High Court’s 2025 habeas adjudication affirmed Article 21’s universality, even for atrocious delicts, deprecating fiscal penury as no palliation for procrastination. These ministrations, transformative albeit circumscribed, evince judicial frontiers—public interest litigations encumber rolls, enforcement reposing in recalcitrant executives.

The 2024 Ameliorations: Avowals, Lacunae, and 2025 Contours

The 2023 codices—BNS (supplanting IPC), BNSS (CrPC), BSA (Evidence Act)—herald a “decolonised” dispensation, abrogating 41 IPC delicts and inaugurating 20 novelties (e.g., mob aggression). BNSS prescribes 45/60/90-day inquisitorial termini for summons/capital/atrocity delicts, harmonising with adjudicative celerity. Cognizance sans locus and electronica enhance Article 21 ingress; BSA legitimises digital probanda, fortifying self-implication aegides via consensual imperatives.

Yet, 2025 effectuation unveils chasms. Under Trial Review Committees (UTRCs), emended November 2024, emancipated 15% augmented quarterly, but undertrials linger at 76%, carcerals at 132% plenitude. Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna’s July 2025 oration bewailed “unparalleled” 5.3 crore pendency, exhorting algorithmic docket orchestration. Constabulary amelioration stagnates: notwithstanding Prakash Singh v. Union of India (2006) edicts, mere 20% polities comply, fomenting capricious seizures infringing Article 22.

November 2025’s “apprehension predicates” adjudication reinforces Article 22, mandating scriptural rationales pre-sequestration, curbing “seizure-precedent, inquisition-subsidiary” praxis. UAPA’s perdurance—sequestrations sans adjudication—challenges Article 21, Supreme Court 2025 petitions assaying electoral disenfranchisement of undertrials as discriminatory. Internationally, paradigms as Norway’s restorative rectitude inspire: India’s NHRC October 2025 conclave advocated juridical succour inundations and carceral ameliorations.

Analytically, ameliorations incline vindicatory toward reformative—communal expiation for trivial delicts—but absent sinews (e.g., 50,000 adjunct adjudicators requisite), they hazard entrenching disparities. Article 20’s retroactive bulwark endures via prospective invocation, but BSA’s dilated “avowal” amplitudes imperil self-implication.

Contemporaneous Exigencies and Prospective Delineations

2025 tableaux—Supreme Court’s vitiation of decennial indictments for procrastination (Unexplained Delay in Investigation, November 2025)—illume fissures: 93% criminal causes pend supra-annum, infringing Article 21. Overplenitude aggravates: undertrials, oft indigent/Dalits, endure subhumanity, clashing Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration (1978) decorum imperatives. Technological duplicity: electronica expedites select adjudications, yet algorithmic vigil impinges confidentiality, per Puttaswamy corollaries.

Delineations: (1) Enforce UTRC edicts with algorithmic oversight; (2) Emend BNSS for presumptive emancipation post-30% adjudicative efflux; (3) Endowment constabularies via compulsory Article 22 pedagogy; (4) Syncretise Directive Principles—Article 47’s uniform codex analogue for criminal uniformity; (5) Emulate globality: dilated plea compacts with aegides, per State of Gujarat v. Natwar Harchandji Thakor (2005).

Civic collectivises—NHRC, non-governmental entities—must audit; Parliament, enact temporal imperatives sans attenuation.

Conclusion

Articles 20-22, smelted in autonomy’s forge, persist as India’s criminal justice polestars amid ameliorative tempests. The 2024 codices, progressive in animus, falter on execution, perpetuating colonial umbrae. As 2025 culminates with Supreme Court’s peremptory summons—from seizure lexicons to procrastination termini—the mandate crystallises: ameliorations must humanise, not accelerate, rectitude. Only thus shall the Constitution’s avowal transcend vellum, ensuring no essence is immolated upon procedural pyres. In Ambedkar’s aphorism, “However salutary a constitution may be, if those who administer… are undesirable, it will prove to be bad.” The gravamen devolves upon collective vigil.