Right to Privacy a fundamental right, Supreme Court declares today

The Supreme Court nine-judge Bench, in a unanimous judgment on Thursday, upheld the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right, reported news agency ANI.According to LiveLawIndia, the apex court said that privacy is protected under Article 21 and Part 3 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court, according to ANI, overruled the M P Sharma (1962) and Kharak Singh (1954) judgments and held the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The verdict was given as soon as the nine-judge Constitution Bench of the apex court resumed the hearing on the case on Thursday morning. Following this, 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 S A Bobde, Justice R K Agrawal, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, Justice D Y 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 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 ground of its being violative of the fundamental right to privacy.The petitioners included former Karnataka High Court Judge K S Puttaswamy, the first chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon, and others.