New Delhi, Jul 23 (DHNS): The Centre on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its decisions holding the right to privacy as fundamental right by claiming the Constitution did not grant it such an exalted status.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi submitted before a three-judge bench presided over by Justice J Chelameswar that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right.
He said the validity of various judgments since 1990s reading the right to privacy into the fundamental rights relating to life and liberty (Article 21) or the right to free speech, movement and peaceful association (Article 19) should be referred to a nine-judge bench for an authoritative pronouncement.
Rohatgi was defending the validity of the Aadhaar card as a batch of petitions challenged the scheme on the ground that collection and sharing of biometric information was a breach of their fundamental right to privacy.
It was a eight-judge bench which had in 1954 ruled that the right to privacy cannot be a fundamental right, he said. He also read out another apex court judgment by a six-judge bench in 1963, holding “the right of privacy is not a guaranteed right under our Constitution.”
He also cited judgments on the subject since the 1990s that held the right to privacy can be construed as a fundamental right subject to certain restrictions and circumstances.
“These judgments then diluted what was held earlier. The yardstick for inferring it as a fundamental right changed from compelling public interest to harm to private interests, including life, health and safety. Interestingly, all these judgments were by smaller benches,” said Rohatgi.
He said that divergent views warranted settlement of the issue by a larger bench.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for former Karnataka High Court judge Justice K S Puttaswamy, contended that the Constitution was to be read as a dynamic document, requiring interpretations to suit the modern times.
He also submitted that it was too late for the government to raise the argument that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right, despite its contrary assertion in the affidavit.
The arguments in the matter remained inconclusive and will continue on Thursday.