Privacy is a fundamental right, declares SC: 

Privacy is a fundamental right, declares SC: 

Context

• Privacy is vital to life and liberty and an inherent part of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution was declared by a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in a unanimous verdict.

The court’s decision

• The court held that privacy is a natural right present in human beings.
• The state does not confer natural rights on citizens. Natural rights like privacy exist equally in all individuals, irrespective of class, strata, gender or orientation.
• “Privacy is the constitutional core of human dignity. Privacy ensures the fulfilment of dignity,” Justice D.Y. Chandrachud wrote.

Arguments by Centre

• The Centre had debated against the recognition of privacy as a fundamental right.
• It had guaranteed the court that privacy would be protected through parliamentary statutes.

Court’s response

• But the court countered that statutory laws “can be made and also unmade by a simple parliamentary majority.”
• “The ruling party can, at will, do away with any or all of the protections contained in the statutes.”
• Fundamental rights are rights citizens may enjoy despite the governments they elect,” Justice Rohinton F. Nariman explained in his separate judgment.
• The court chided the Centre for describing right to privacy as an “elitist construct.”
• The court maintained that privacy was the concern of a few, while schemes like Aadhaar, which require citizens to part with their biometric details to the state, reduce corruption and benefit millions of poor.
• The refrain that the poor need no civil and political rights and are concerned only with economic well-being has been utilized through history to wreak the most egregious violations of human rights.
• It is privacy, as an intrinsic and core feature of life and personal liberty, which enables individuals to stand up against a programme of forced sterilization.
• It is the right to question, scrutinize, dissent which enables an informed citizenry to scrutinize the actions of government.

Not an absolute right

• However, the court held that privacy is not an absolute right.
• The government can introduce a law which “intrudes” into privacy for public and legitimate state reasons.