Article – 33/ 34 / 35 { FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS }



ARMED FORCES AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS :

• Article 33 empowers the Parliament to restrict or abrogate the fundamental rights of the members of armed forces, para-military forces, police forces, intelligence agencies and analogous forces.

• The objective of this provision is to ensure the proper discharge of their duties and the maintenance of discipline among them.

• Accordingly, the Parliament has enacted the Army Act (1950), the Navy Act (1950), the Air Force Act (1950), the Police Forces (Restriction of Rights) Act, 1966, the Border Security Force Act and so on.

• These impose restrictions on their freedom of speech, right to form associations, right to be members of trade unions or political associations, right to communicate with the press, right to attend public meetings or demonstrations, etc.

• A parliamentary law enacted under Article 33 can also exclude the court martials (tribunals established under the military law) from the writ jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the high courts, so far as the enforcement of Fundamental Rights is concerned.

ARTICLE 34 :

1. Article 34 provides for the restrictions on fundamental rights while martial law is in force in any area within the territory of India.

2. The concept of martial law has been borrowed in India from the English common law. However, the expression ‘martial law’ has not been defined anywhere in the Constitution. Literally, it means ‘military rule’.

3. It refers to a situation where civil administration is run by the military authorities according to their own rules and regulations framed outside the ordinary law

4. It thus imply the suspension of ordinary law and the government by military tribunals. It is different from the military law that is applicable to the armed forces. The martial law is imposed under the extraordinarycircumstances like war, invasion, insurrection, rebellion, riot or any violent resistance to law. Its justification is to repel force by force for maintaining or restoring order in the society.

ARTICLE 35 :

2.      Parliament shall have (and the legislature of a state shall not have) powers to make laws for prescribing punishment for those acts that are declared to be offences under the fundamental rights. These include the following:

a) Untouchability (Article 17). 

b) Traffic in human beings and forced labour (Article 23). Further, the Parliament shall, after the commencement of the Constitution, make laws for prescribing punishment for the above acts, thus making it obligatory on the part of the Parliament to enact such laws. 

3.      Any law in force at the commencement of the Constitution with respect to any of the matters specified above is to continue in force until altered or repealed or amended by the Parliament. It should be noted that Article 35 extends the competence of the Parliament to make a law on the matters specified above, even though some of those matters may fall within the sphere of the state legislatures (i.e., State List).

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