Centre concedes in Supreme Court on privacy, but terms it as 'vague'

Attorney General KK Venugopal, presenting the stand of the Centre before a nine-judge bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar, sought to distinguish the right to privacy in the context of developing and developed nations.

"In a developing country, where millions of people are devoid of the basic necessities of life and do not even have shelter, food, clothing or jobs, and are forced to sleep on pavement even in the height of winter and, perhaps, to die, no claim to a right to privacy of the nature claimed in this case, as a fundamental right, would lie," he said.

Venugopal said that the right to privacy flows from the right to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution and it could not take precedence over the right to life.

"When the state undertakes welfare measures and schemes traceable not only to the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, but also to the guarantees in the Preamble to the Constitution, like social justice, economic justice...and protecting the dignity of the individual, a claim to privacy, which would destroy or erode basic foundation of the Constitution, can never be elevated to a status of fundamental right," he said.

Venugopal then referred to the right to privacy and said that all aspects of privacy will not automatically qualify as fundamental right but at the most, as common law rights.

"The right to privacy, if at all can be only one among the varied rights falling under the umbrella of the right to personal liberty and would be a species of the larger genus that is liberty...", he said.

Earlier, the Centre had submitted that right to privacy cannot fall in the bracket of fundamental rights as there are binding decisions of larger benches that it is only a common law right evolved through judicial pronouncements.

It had said it is only the unauthorised intrusions into one's privacy which is protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The bench is examining whether right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution.

The Centre, which is buttressing its stand on the basis of the findings of the two larger benches, said, "On a combined reading of the two judgments, it is clear that they hold that there is no fundamental right to privacy in the Constitution.

"It is only unauthorised intrusions (without law) into one's home that is protected under Article 21 of the Constitution as a component of ordered liberty. Thus, in view of the aforementioned judgments, no Article 32 petition lies in this court on the ground of violation of privacy," it said.