July 27, 2015, DHNS
The Centre’s assertion to the Supreme Court that the right to privacy is not a fundamental right is disconcerting and short-sighted. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi made this statement during the hearing on whether the Aadhaar card system, by collecting the individual citizen’s confidential information, violates the right to privacy. Though the right to privacy had so far not explicitly been declared a fundamental right, it was widely assumed to flow from the other fundamental rights of the citizen. This assumption has now taken a beating, the consequences of which can only be adverse. For, not giving the tag of fundamental right to privacy opens a Pandora’s box, the end result of which could seriously dent privileges the Constitution grants a common citizen.
Tapping phones, for instance, has always been frowned upon by the courts as it violates the right to privacy. So too the monitoring of private communication between two individuals, whether by snail mail, email or any other means. The media too, by an unwritten convention, by and large does not report on the private lives of public figures on the grounds that the right to privacy is sacrosanct. Even where the media does report, it is always accompanied by an apologetic rider, whether justified or not.
In one stroke, the Centre has swept aside the need for such niceties and made it possible for the private lives of individual citizens to be laid bare for public scrutiny. This can only mean trouble for everyone and a subversion of the various other fundamental rights that are explicitly laid out in the Constitution.
The government’s argument that the right to privacy was negated in a 1954 apex court judgment is out of context. In that case, the petitioners argued that a search and seizure warrant against their properties violated their right to privacy. The court then ruled that right to privacy cannot be used to block authorities from investigating a case under the code of criminal procedure.
In a 1994 judgment, the apex court ruled that right to privacy is implicit in Article 21 of the Constitution. Justice Jeevan Reddy described it as the “right to be let alone”.
The Narendra Modi government, in response to the challenge posed to the Aadhaar system on grounds of right to privacy, should have come up with proposals to protect the confidential data of citizens. Instead, by questioning the right to privacy, it has tried to take the easy way out at the expense of endangering the rights of the individual citizen. The government must reconsider its stand, without further delay.
