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No extrinisic aid is needed to interpret the words of Article 21 which in my opinion, are not ambiguous. Normally read, and without thinking of other Constitutions, the expression 'procedure established by law' must mean procedure prescribed by the law of the State".

28. it is common ground that no procedure prescribed by the law of this country sustains the refusal of a passport to the petitioner. I have already indicated that in my view the refusal of a passport in such circumstances amounts to an unauthorised deprivation of the personal liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. It follows that the appropriate authority should be directed to reconsider the refusal and grant a passport in the light of what has been stated in this judgment. I direct accordingly. Time allowed: Two months from this date.

35. The respondents contend that, in law, no passport is necessary for leaving the country and that therefore the refusal of passports to the petitioners does not prevent them from doing so : that freedom of movement, in particular freedom of exit from or entry into the country is not a personal liberty within the meaning of Article 21 : that the petitioners have no legal right to a passport and that therefore the denial cannot attract Article 14; and that the grant or refusal of a passport is a political function entirely within the discretion of the 1st respondent and immune from judicial review.

46. There is, as we have seen, no law preventing the petitioners frome leaving the country without a passport. And it is said that, even if we are satisfied that the petitioners have the right to leave the country, and that the executive is preventing them from exercising that right by refusing passports, all we can do is to direct the executive to forbear from preventing them from leaving without passports, or, put in a positive form, to allow them to go without passports. (That would appear to be 80, and the argument that other countries will refuse entry to the petitioners if they have no passports so that they might as well stay at home seems to me neither here nor there. The Constitution cannot and does not guarantee the petitioners any freedom of movement outside the territory of India, and if they choose not to exercise the right of exit because other countries will not allow them entry that is no denial of that right). And, in so far as coming back to the country is concerned, it is pointed out that there is a law, namely, Rule 3 of the Indian Passport Rules which prohibits them from entering the country without a pass port. The constitutional validity of this law has been upheld by the Supreme Court in AIR 1959 SC 1315 and, although the attack in that case was based only on Article 19(1)(d) and (e) it must be assumed that the law has survived the test of Articles 14 and 21 as well. Therefore, if the petitioners are deprived of the right to come back to the country, that deprivation is according to procedure established by a valid law and the petitioners can therefore have no legitimate complaint. Thus, in no view of ths matter, can their prayer for the grant of passports be countenanced.

"7. The granting of an injunction against a refusal by the Secretary of State to issue a passport (or the granting of mandamus to compel the issuance of such a passport by him), at the suit of one determined by the court to be a citizen of the United States, is not an unauthorised interference with the discretion of that official with respect to passports where the bill alleges that the passport is refused solely upon the ground that the applicant has lost 'her United States Citizenship."

There the rejection was solely on the ground that Elg was not a citizen, a decisive ground which the court, however, found to be factually incorrect. Here the case is much stronger. The sole ground of the rejection is that the petitioners are doctors whose services the country needs a good ground no doubt for stopping them from going if there were a law restricting the departure of such persons, but an entirely irrelevant ground for the refusal of a passport. Our powers under Article 226 to mould the relief so as to meet the euds of justice according the requirements of each case-are very wide and are free of the trammels imposed by their origin and history on traditional English remedies like mandamus. And I think it would bo a proper exercise of that power to direct a mandamus in these eases.