Supreme Court verdict on right to privacy: Key observations

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday declared that right to privacy was a fundamental right and protected as an intrinsic part of life and personal liberty and freedoms guaranteed by Constitution.

Rejecting the government's contention that privacy was not a fundamental right, a nine-judge Constitution bench unanimously overturned two earlier rulings in the M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh cases that held that the right to privacy was not protected by the Constitution.

There were six judgments written by the nine judges but all of them were unanimous in asserting that right to privacy was a fundamental right.

Here are the highlights of the apex court's observations while delivering the verdict:

1. The issue reaches out to the foundation of a constitutional culture based on the protection of human rights and enables this Court to revisit the basic principles on which our Constitution has been founded and their consequences for a way of life it seeks to protect.

2. This case presents challenges for constitutional interpretation. If privacy is to be construed as a protected constitutional value, it would redefine in significant ways our concepts of liberty and the entitlements that flow out of its protection.

3. Privacy, in its simplest sense, allows each human being to be left alone in a core which is inviolable. Yet the autonomy of the individual is conditioned by her relationships with the rest of society. Those relationships may and do often pose questions to autonomy and free choice.

4. The overarching presence of state and non-state entities regulate aspects of social existence which bear upon the freedom of the individual.

5. The preservation of constitutional liberty is, so to speak, work in progress. Challenges have to be addressed to existing problems. Equally, new challenges have to be dealt with in terms of a constitutional understanding of where liberty places an individual in the context of a social order.

6. The emergence of new challenges is exemplified by this case, where the debate on privacy is being analysed in the context of a global information based society.

7. In an age where information technology governs virtually every aspect of our lives, the task before the Court is to impart constitutional meaning to individual liberty in an interconnected world.

8. While we revisit the question whether our Constitution protects privacy as an elemental principle, the Court has to be sensitive to the needs of and the opportunities and dangers posed to liberty in a digital world.