Supreme Court may decide today if privacy is a basic right

A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar had on August 2 reserved its verdict after hearing marathon arguments for six days over a period of three weeks, during which submissions were advanced in favour and against the inclusion of the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

The contentious issue had emerged when the apex court was dealing with a batch of petitions challenging the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes.

Initially, on July 7, a three-judge bench had said that all issues arising out of Aadhaar should finally be decided by a larger bench and the Chief Justice of India would take a call on the need for setting up a constitution bench.

The matter was then mentioned before CJI Khehar who set up a five-judge constitution bench to hear the matter. However, the five-judge constitution bench on July 18 decided to set up a nine-judge bench to decide whether the right to privacy can be declared a fundamental right under the Constitution.

The decision to set up the nine-judge bench was taken to examine the correctness of two apex court judgements delivered in the cases of Kharak Singh and M P Sharma, decided by six and eight judge benches respectively, in which it was held that this right was not a fundamental right.

While the Kharak Singh judgement was delivered in 1960, the M P Sharma verdict was reported in 1950.