 He is eulogized for his minority judgement in the highly publicized Habeas Corpus case during the Indian Emergency, in which the remaining four judges of the five-member bench, Chief Justice A. N. Ray, Justice M. H. Beg, Justice Y. V. Chandrachud and Justice P. N. Bhagwati, agreed with the governmental view and submission that even the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India like the right to life and liberty stood abrogated during the period of national emergency.Khanna's judgement was the lone dissenting vote, and his opinion, claiming that the Article 21 of the Constitution could not possibly be the sole repository of the fundamental rights to life and liberty as these predate the Constitution itself and the existence of these rights cannot be subjugated to any executive decree even during the period of national emergency for these are inalienable to one's life and dignified existence, is praised for its 'fearlessness' and 'eloquence'.In January 1977, nine months after delivering his venerated dissent in the ADM Jabalpur v. Shiv Kant Shukla (Habeas Corpus) case, Khanna was superseded to the office of the Chief Justice of India by Justice M. H. Beg, contrary to the convention of appointing the senior-most puisne judge as the next Chief Justice of India on the superannuation of the incumbent, at the behest of the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, despite him being the senior-most puisne judge in the Supreme Court at the time of superannuation of A. N. Ray, the incumbent Chief Justice of India.