In Support Of Right To Privacy, Justice Chandrachud Overrules Father’s 1976 Ruling
Justice Chandrachud overturns his father’s 1976 ruling.
Justice DY Chandrachud, part of the nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court that ruled privacy is a fundamental right, ended up overturning a verdict given by his father, a former Chief Justice of India, 41 years ago.
In the privacy verdict, Justice Chandrachud referred to the Jabalpur case, popularly known as the Habeas Corpus case – a legal battle over enforcement of fundamental rights during Emergency, a 21-month period between 1975 and 1977 when the rights of citizens were suspended.
Four out of the five members of a 1976 Constitution bench had held that once Article 21 (Right to Life and Liberty) was suspended during Emergency, a person cannot move court to enforce his rights granted by it. Justice HR Khanna was the lone dissenting judge in that verdict. Justice Chandrachud’s father, Justice YV Chandrachud, had co-authored the majority verdict.
On Thursday, Justice Chandrachud wrote, “The judgements rendered by all the four judges constituting the majority in Additional District Magistrate (ADM), Jabalpur versus Shivakant Shukla are seriously flawed. Life and personal liberty are inalienable to human existence.”
“ADM Jabalpur must be and is accordingly overruled. We also overrule the decision in Union of India v Bhanudas Krishna Gawde 213, which followed ADM Jabalpur,” wrote Justice Chandrachud.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, in a separate ruling, also supported the striking down of the Jabalpur case. Justice Kaul called the 1976 judgement “an aberration in the constitutional jurisprudence of our country and the desirability of burying the majority opinion ten fathom deep, with no chance of resurrection”.
Concurring with Justices Chandrachud and Kaul, Justice Rohinton Nariman in his decision on Thursday went on to praise Justice Khanna’s view in the 1976 verdict, calling it a “remarkable dissent”.
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