Y.V. Chandrachud JUDGMENT
M. Hameedullah Beg, C.J.
1. The case before us involves questions relating to basic human rights. On such questions I believe that multiplicity of views giving the approach of each member of this Court is not a disadvantage if it clarifies our not infrequently differing approaches. It should enable all interested to appreciate better the significance of our Constitution.
2. As I am in general agreement with my learned brethren Bhagwati and Krishna Iyer. I will endeavour to confine my observations to an indication of my own approach on some matters for consideration now before us. This seems to me to be particularly necessary as my learned brother Kailasam, who has also given us the benefit of his separate opinion, has a somewhat different approach. I have had the advantage of going through the opinions of each of my three learned brethren.
3. It seems to me that there can be little doubt that the right to travel and to go outside the country, which orders regulating issue, suspension or impounding, and cancellation of passports directly affect, must be included in rights to "personal liberty" on the strength of decisions of this Court giving a very wide ambit to the right to personal liberty (see : Satwant Singh Sawhney v. D. Ramarathnam, Assistant Passport Officer, Government of India, New Delhi and Ors. 
MANU/SC/0040/1967 : [1967]3SCR525 , Kharak Singh v. State of U.P. and Ors. MANU/SC/0085/1962 : 1963CriLJ329 .
4. Article 21 of the Constitution reads as follows :
Protection of life and personal liberty. No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
5. It is evident that Article 21, though so framed as to appear as a shield operating negatively against executive encroachment over something covered by that shield, is the legal recognition of both the protection or the shield as well as of what it protects which lies beneath that shield. It has been, so interpreted as long ago as in A. K. Gopalan v. State of Madras MANU/SC/0012/1950 : 1950CriLJ1383 , where, as pointed out by me in Additional District Magistrate, Jabalpur v. S. S. Shukla and Ors. MANU/SC/0062/1976 : [1976] Supp. SCR 172at 327 with the h........