Supreme Court Declares Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right in Indian Constitution

• Nine-judge bench of the apex court has declared Right to Privacy as the fundamental right.
• Former Karnataka High Court judge, Shri Justice KS Puttaswamy was the first one to file the petition.
• Previous judgements on the Right to Privacy by M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh have been over-ruled.

New Delhi, August 24, 2017: In another historic judgment by Supreme Court of India, all 134 crore Indians will enjoy the right to privacy as their fundamental right.

A nine-judge constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar unanimously declared Right to Privacy a fundamental right under Article 21 of Indian Constitution.

The Right to Privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

Other members of the nine-judge constitutional bench comprised Justices J Chelameswar, S A Bobde, R K Agrawal, R F Nariman, A M Sapre, D Y Chandrachud, S K Kaul and S Abdul Nazeer.

Nine-judge bench today over-ruled the judgments of both eight-judge bench and six-judge bench headed by M.P. Sharma(1962) and Kharak Singh(1954) resp., which held that Right to Privacy is not protected by the Constitution.

The Right to Privacy verdict of Supreme Court is written in 547 pages. Read the verdict here: http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/pdf/LU/ALL%20WP(C)%20No.494%20of%202012%20Right%20to%20Privacy.pdf

Today, the 91-year old, former Karnataka High Court judge, Shri Justice KS Puttaswamy must be relieved after hearing this historic judgment from the apex court, as he was the first one to file a writ petition against the Union of India in this case.

"Right to Privacy has assumed an uncharted flight. I never contemplated it would comprehend so many things, but the judges may write a good judgment. It will be a memorable one for him (the one writing the judgment)," said Puttaswamy.

Senior Advocates Shyam Divan, Arvind Datar, Gopal Subramanium, Meenakshi Arora, Sajan Poovayya, Soli Sorabjee and Anand Grover had appeared for various individual petitioners arguing in favor of the Right to Privacy, mentioned Bar and Bench report.

Today's verdict does not comment on whether the government's demand for Aadhaar to be linked to PAN card is an infringement of privacy or not. Another small bench of judges will decide upon it.

The verdict has created a huge stir in the nation. Indian National Congress has whole heartedly welcomed the judgment.

"It was on July 20, when all the petitioners had completed their arguments. Then, on July 26, the center stepped in, Attorney General, K.K. Venugopal told the apex court that privacy, as a fundamental right, could have been mentioned in Article 21, but has been omitted. Right to life transcends right to privacy". Then, on August 2, the apex court reserved its judgment on the issue of whether the right to privacy is fundamental or not," mentioned ANI report.

Finally, the clouds of suspense have been cleared. Right to Privacy is declared as a fundamental right in India.

–prepared by Shivani Chowdhary of NewsGram. Twitter @cshivani31