Is every aspect of privacy fundamental?

-Aravind.P
14BLA1007
Since the emergence of technology and the electronic world, India has witnessed many issues
regarding data security such as data stealing which causes intrusion to a person’s privacy. In
India, the right to privacy, though not explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution, has been
recognised by the Apex Court as a right that is inferred from Article 21, the most
fundamental right.1 Now, after the privacy debates on the constitutional validity of Aadhar,
the nine-judge Constitution Bench of Supreme Court is yet to decide whether the right to
privacy can be given constitutional status. The arguments, both supporting and opposing the
constitutional validity of right to privacy, produced in the Supreme Court of India is
noteworthy. On August 4, 2017 Supreme Court appreciated the arguments of the young
lawyers, who, by way of lucid articulation of facts, case laws and illuminating deductions
based on judgments of the US Supreme Court, opposed the pro-privacy approach. It was
argued that if privacy was given the cloak of a fundamental right, then all social networking
sites would be prohibited from seeking personal information from users under the guise of a
private contract between the platform and user. They argued, “at its core, privacy is nothing
but liberty to do or not to do something. In an advanced country like the US where right to
privacy has got constitutional status, the US Supreme Court has not used right to privacy as a
tool to test the validity of privacy related laws for abortion or LGBT rights. If the US
Supreme Court consciously chose not to take privacy as a fundamental right, despite being
enshrined in the Constitution, to test the validity of a legislation, the Indian Supreme Court
must remain conscious of the pitfalls in defining an undefinable right like privacy. After
listening to arguments for and against privacy as a fundamental right, the nine-judge
Constitution bench of the Supreme Court has reserved its verdict in the case. This judgement
will be of greater public interest, as it is going to affect the majority of the sections of the
society. Furthermore, it would lay down a foundation for a better privacy policy in the
country, which is exigency with the progressing science and technology.

1
R. Rajagopal v. State of TamilNadu, (1994) 6 SCC 632; See B.D.Agarwala, Right to privacy: A case by case
development, (1996) 3 SCC (Jour) 9