Judgment

S. K. DAS, J. : This is a writ petition. The three petitioners before us are (1) R. P. Kapur, a member of the Indian Civil Service, who before his suspension was serving as a Commissioner in the State of Punjab, (2) Sheila Kapur, his wife, and (3) Kaushalya Devi, his mother-in-law. They have moved this Court under Art. 32 of the Constitution for the enforcement of their rights under Arts. 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which rights they say have been violated by the respondents who are the State of Punjab, Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, Chief Minister thereof, and certain officials, police, administrative and magisterial, who have been conducting, or are connected with, the investigation or inquiry against the petitioners. We shall refer to some of these officials later in this judgment in relation to the part which they have played or are playing in those criminal cases.

2. Briefly stated the case of the petitioners is that petitioner No. 1 had the misfortune to incur the wrath of the Chief Minister of the State. It is alleged that the Chief Minister was annoyed with petitioner No. 1, because the latter did not show his readiness to give evidence for the prosecution in a case