Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017)

1. Case Title & Citation

The case is called Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Another vs. Union of India and Others. It is a landmark decision of honourable supreme court of India. It is also known as the Right to Privacy verdict. The main person who brought the case, the petitioner, was a retired judge from the Karnataka High Court, Justice K.S. Puttaswamy. The defendant, or respondent, was the Government of India, known as the Union of India. The official citations for the judgment are Writ Petition (Civil) No 494 of 2012, (2017) 10 SCC 1, and AIR 2017 SC 4161.

2. Court Name & Bench

The case started when people challenged the Indian government’s Aadhaar program. This program aimed to give every resident a unique identity card based on their fingerprints and other personal details, and it would be required to get government services. The people who filed the case argued that collecting this personal data went against their fundamental right to privacy.

A lower court first heard the case. During the hearing, the government’s lawyer said that the Indian Constitution does not grant a specific fundamental right to privacy. They based this on two older Supreme Court decisions from 1954 and 1962, which had said the same thing. Because of above conflict, the court decided to refer the matter to a larger group of judges that is nine judge benches to settle the issue matter. The nine judges were Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, Justice J. Chelameswar, Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice R.K. Agarwal, Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.

3. Date of Judgment

The judgment was delivered on August 24, 2017

4. Parties Involved

The petitioner in the case was Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.), a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court. The respondent was the Union of India, representing the Government of India

5. Facts of the case

A special group of nine Supreme Court judges was formed to hear the case. They gave their decision on August 24, 2017. All nine judges agreed that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected by the Indian Constitution. They made it clear that this right is part of a person’s right to life and liberty. This decision overturned the two previous Supreme Court judgments that had said privacy was not a fundamental right.

6. Raised legal Issues

The fundamental legal question before the honourable supreme court was whether the right to privacy Under article 21 is a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution.

The court also had to address several secondary legal questions:

• Whether the earlier Supreme Court judgments in M.P. Sharma v. Satish Chandra and Kharak Singh v. State of U.P, which had deprived of the existence of a fundamental right to privacy, were correctly decided.
  • What is the nature, scope, and different facts of the right to privacy under the Constitution.
  • What is the permissible test for a state-sanctioned imposition on the right to privacy.

7. Argument of parties

The central debate in the case was not only about Aadhar scheme, but also the profound philosophical and jurisprudential disagreement about the nature of fundamental rights of constitution of India.

The petition’s counsel argues in the honourable court that the right to privacy was an inherent and independent right, not explicitly mention in the Indian Constitution. The petitioner’s position was that the Constitution must be read in line with its Preamble, which enshrines liberty and dignity, and must also reflect the universal recognition of privacy as a natural and international human right. The Aadhaar scheme, by its very design, was argued to be a direct and unconstitutional infringement on this inherent right.

In contrast, the respondent, the Union of India, contended that the Indian Constitution does not grant specific protection for the right to privacy. The government’s interpretation is narrow relied heavily previous judgment of honourable supreme court in M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh.

This ideological clash was about a deeper question: whether fundamental rights are inalienable and pre-existing, or if they are a “bounty” conferred by the state. The respondent’s position, relying on historical precedents, essentially proposed that rights are state-given and can be limited as the state sees fit. The petitioner’s argument, which was ultimately adopted by the court, championed the view that rights like dignity and privacy are primordial and exist even before the Constitution. The resolution of this fundamental disagreement marks a critical jurisprudential shift in Indian constitutional law, moving from a more limited, state-centric view of rights to an expansive, citizen-centric one.

8. Legal Reasoning / Ratio Decidendi

The court’s reasoning was thorough and clear. They said that the right to privacy is a key part of human dignity, personal freedom, and the ability to make your own choices. They declared that this right is an inherent part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. The judges also mention that right to life and personal liberty is connected to other fundamental rights such as equality before law and equal protection of law under Article 14 and freedom of speech and expression under Article 19.

The Honourable court also established a three-part test for the government to follow if it wants to limit a person’s privacy:

1. Legality: The action of government must be based on a specific regulation and existing law.
2. Necessity: The law must be needed for a genuine and valid government purpose.
3. Proportionality: The action of government must be a practical and balanced way to achieve its goal.

This test is a very important part of the decision. The test provides a legal standard to ensure that any action of government that impact a person’s privacy are not random or excessive.

9. What This Means for India

The landmark decision of K.S Puttaswamy verdict that changed Indian law significantly. It raised the right to privacy to a fundamental right, making it a stronger legal protection for citizens.

This judgment had major ripple effects:

• It covered the way for the decriminalization of homosexuality in 2018, as the honourable court recognized that sexual orientation is a matter of privacy.
• It helped overturn the law on adultery, stating that it violated a person’s dignity and autonomy.
• It was used to support the right to passive euthanasia, linking it to the concepts of bodily integrity and the right to die with dignity.
• It created a strong need for India to create a data protection law to manage how the government and companies handle personal information.

The decision shows that the Supreme Court is willing to change old rulings and adapt the Constitution to new challenges, like those posed by technology and the digital age. It underlines that basic rights, like life and liberty, are not given by the government but are intrinsic to every person.

        10.Conclusion

The judgment is a turning point moment in history of Indian legal system. It finally shifted the legal landscape by uplifting the right to privacy from a common-law or statutory right to a fundamental constitutional right. This landmark judgment marks a new era of jurisprudence in Indian legal history, with deep and far-reaching implications.

The judgment’s clear and common overruling of long-standing precedents like Kharak Singh and M.P. Sharma is highly significant. It demonstrates the Supreme Court’s willingness to correct historical misinterpretations and evolve with the needs of a modern, rights-conscious society.

Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018) and Joseph Shine v. Union of India case

The judgment has served as the foundational precedent for several subsequent landmark decisions, demonstrating its transformative impact on Indian jurisprudence. For instance, the above-mentioned judgment explicitly recognized that “sexual orientation is an essential attribute of privacy,” which laid the groundwork for the succeeding decriminalization of homosexuality in the case of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India in year 2018. The principles of privacy and bodily integrity established in Puttaswamy were also used to strike down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code on adultery in the Joseph Shine v. Union of India case, as it was found to be against the core concepts of autonomy and dignity. Furthermore, the judgment prejudiced the decision in Common Cause v. Union of India, which upheld the legality of passive euthanasia, as the court linked the right to die with dignity to the concepts of bodily integrity, autonomy, and liberty articulated in the Puttaswamy verdict.

ADM Jabalpur case

The honourable court’s decision to ignore the reasoning in the ADM Jabalpur case also made a strong statement about the philosophical basis of the Constitution, saying that life and liberty are basic rights that cannot be taken away even in times of crisis. It is also known as the Habeas Corpus case.

Based on the above judgment and recommendation of B.S Srikrishna committee, Government of India passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, It is an umbrella regulation for protecting all type data such as health, users, customers etc. Moreover, there are vague or some grey areas of the Act like does not cover the Artificial Intelligence black box issue, cross boarder data transfer decided by government on India, on what bases we don’t know.