Nine-Judge Supreme Court Bench To Decide If Privacy Is A Fundamental Right

A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court will determine if the right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution.

The decision to refer the matter to a larger bench was taken by the apex court while hearing challenges to the validity of Aadhaar. It will hear the matter on Wednesday.

The nine-judge bench will re-examine whether the two earlier rulings – 1954 judgment in MP Sharma’s case and 1962 verdict in Kharak Singh’s case – are the correct expressions of the Constitution. An eight-judge and a six-judge bench, in the two cases, respectively, had held that there’s no fundamental right to privacy.

During the hearing on Tuesday, the central government took the view that privacy is a common law right and the Constitution doesn’t explicitly provide for it. The government argued that the founding fathers deliberately omitted the fundamental right to privacy from the Constitution.

Hearings on Aadhaar will resume before the five-judge bench only after the larger bench rules on the privacy aspect.