The Centre requested the Supreme Court to set up a bench of five or more judges to adjudicate whether right to privacy was part of a citizen’s fundamental right given the conflicting rulings given by the apex court on this issue in the last 60 years.
Appearing for the Centre, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told a three-judge bench headed by Justices J Chelameswar that an eight judge bench in 1954 in M P Sharma case, followed by a six-judge bench judgment in Kharak Singh case in 1964, had ruled that right to privacy was not part of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution to citizens.
Subsequent rulings by benches with lesser number of judges holding that right to privacy indeed formed part of right to life guaranteed under Article 21 had created confusion, the AG (Attorney General) said.
What did the Attorney General say?
- Right to privacy did not figure in the fundamental rights guaranteed to citizens under Chapter III of the Constitution. So, the court has to first determine whether right to privacy is at all a fundamental right. If so, what are its contours?
- The contours of right to privacy have not been defined by the Supreme Court benches even when they differed with larger benches’ ruling that it was not a fundamental right.
- If the question related to determination whether right to privacy is a fundamental right, then it should be referred to a constitution bench of at least five judges as it would involve serious interpretation of constitutional provisions.
Reason behind the AG’s question
- The question whether right to privacy was a fundamental right arose in a bunch of petitions which challenged the government’s decision to gather citizens’ personal data for the Aadhaar card.
- The petitioners called it intrusive and feared that the manner in which the data was kept and shared with private operators could lead to serious violation of right to privacy of citizens.
