In a landmark decision that will affect the lives of all Indians, the Supreme Court today unanimously declared that right to privacy was a Fundamental right under the Constitution. A nine-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar ruled that “right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution”.
The ruling on the highly contentious issue was to deal with a batch of petitions challenging the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes. Others members of the bench comprising 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 also shared the same view.
The nine judges unanimously overruled the two earlier judgements of the apex court that right to privacy is not protected under the Constitution. The bench overruled the M P Sharma verdict of 1950 and that of Kharak Singh of 1960. The judgement in the Kharak Singh case was pronounced by eight judges and in M P Sharma it was delivered by six judges.
Justice Khehar, who read the operative portion of the judgement, said the subsequent verdicts pronounced after M P Sharma and Kharak Singh have laid down the correct position of the law. Before pronouncing the judgement, the CJI said that among the nine judges some of them have authored different orders.
