Right to Privacy a fundamental right: Supreme Court
Our Correspondent / New Delhi
India’s Supreme Court in a historical verdict today ruled that Right to Privacy is a fundamental right. The Apex Court’s nine-judge bench upheld that the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right.
The top court in a unanimous judgment, ruled that privacy is protected under Article 21 and Part 3 of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court overruled the M.P. Sharma (1962) and Kharak Singh (1954) judgments and held that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, in a unanimous decision (of the nine-judge bench).
After this ruling a a five-judge constitutional bench will decide whether Aadhaar violates the Right to Privacy or not, the news agency added.
The nine-judge Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice J Chelameswar, Justice SA Bobde, Justice RK Agrawal, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and Justice S Abdul Nazeer had reserved the verdict on August 2 after hearing the matter for two weeks.
The hearing had commenced on July 19 and concluded on August 2.
The entire issue was rooted in a reference by a three-judge bench that was hearing a challenge to the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Scheme on the grounds of its being violative of the fundamental right to privacy.
The petitioners included former Karnataka High Court Judge KS Puttaswamy, the first chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon, and others.
However, the Centre contested their position citing two judgments of 1954 (by eight judges) and 1962 (by six judges), which had held that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right.
The hearing saw a divide with the Centre and BJP-ruled Maharashtra and Gujarat contending that right to privacy was not a fundamental right and states ruled by the Congress – Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry – and the TMC in West Bengal asserting that privacy was a fundamental right.