Externment orders must be used only in exceptional cases: SC

Journalist Rahmat Khan complained to court he was banned from entering Amravati City or rural district for a year

The Supreme Court has held that the power of the State to pass an externment order or a direction barring certain people entry to specified areas should be exercised only in “exceptional cases”. The rights to free movement and residence across India cannot be curtailed on flimsy grounds, a Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and V. Ramasubramanian held in a judgment. “A person cannot be denied his fundamental right to reside anywhere in the country or to move freely throughout the country on flimsy grounds,“ Justice Banerjee observed in the recent judgment.