This blog is written by AYUSHI MAGGON, B.B.A LL.B. (Hons.), 2nd year law student from, school of law, lovely professional university. This article analyses the Right to Privacy and its various aspects with regard to article 21 Indian Constitution
“Privacy is not an option it’s a inherent right of individual “
INTRODUCTION
It is pretty exciting and maximum identified proper, the proper to privateness, even though the poles are separate and opposite, hostile and complementary withinside the Indian prison system. This proper is a totally vital proper for the survival of a person in a fast-paced, cutting-edge and technological world – wherein shielding the privateness and protection of an man or woman will become a concern.
Although now no longer expressly said with inside the Constitution of India, it’s been held via numerous Supreme Court judgments that the rights are a part of the Fundamental Rights – with the proper to privateness occupying a function beneathneath the supply which is likewise referred to as the Heart of the Indian Constitution – Article 21 “Right to Life” .
Individual privateness is an increasing number of challenged through new technology and tendencies in society. For a organic person, the safety of the proper to privateness is to be had beneathneath Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The proper to privateness isn’t absolute. This proper may be regulated and restrained withinside the large public interest.
RIGHT TO PRIVACY
The right to privacy is part of human dignity. Privacy helps people protect their individuality and personal things, distinguishing them from the inaccessible and the accessible. People claim to be the owners of information about themselves, and free countries do not hold citizens accountable for their choices about what information to share and what not to share. At the same time, this does not mean that public policy respects individuality and choice while pretending to protect people.
The right to privacy is not an explicit right conferred by the 1950 Indian Constitution, but an implied right under Article 21 of the Constitution. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution reads as follows: This article of the Indian Constitution, also known as the heart of the Indian Constitution, broadly covers the right to privacy. The right to privacy is a universal concept and is reflected in various international laws and treaties. Every person has a private life and the right to privacy is intended to give individuals the right to identify, be left alone and create their own privacy free from third party interference. For example, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states: that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, or to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation”.
The proper to lifestyles inside Article 21 is freely interpreted and therefore, it consists of all elements of a lifestyles that makes a person’s lifestyles greater significant and the proper to privateness is this sort of rights.
This difficulty become first raised in Kharak Singh vs. the nation of UP (1962), [i]the Supreme Court held that Regulation 236 of the UP Police Regulations violated the Constitution as it violated Article 21 of the Constitution. The Court held that the proper to privateness is a part of the proper to guard lifestyles and private freedom. In this case, the Court equated privateness with private freedom.
Maneka Gandhi vs. UOI (1978) [ii]laid down the triple take a look at for any regulation interfering with private liberty:
(1) It need to prescribe a manner; the manner need to face up to the take a look at of 1 or greater of the essential rights conferred below Article 19 [iii]which can be relevant in a given scenario and
(3) It need to face up to the take a look at of Article 14.
The regulation and manner authorizing interference with private liberty and proper of privateness need to additionally be proper, simply and honest and now no longer arbitrary, or oppressive. It is now mounted that the proper to lifestyles and liberty below Article 21 includes the proper to privateness as well.
JURISPRUDENCE
In the case of Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. vs. Union Of India And Ors., [iv]the Supreme Court of India which held that the right to privacy is protected as a fundamental constitutional right under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. In this case, the nine-member panel unanimously decided that “the right to privacy is protected as an integral part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution”. The bench further stated in this case that privacy has two roles: prescriptive and descriptive. Privacy in a normative sense is associated with moral principles, eternal values and the foundations of human dignity, autonomy and self-worth. In a descriptive sense, it refers to a group of claims and claims asserted on a normative basis and made realizable that are supported by a constitutional mandate. If the state denies it to any person, he can go to the highest court of the land to defend and enforce the right.However, the Constitution recognizes the right to privacy as an implicit part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND RIGHT TO PRIVACY
In R. Rajagopal v. Tennessee (1994), [v]the Supreme Court dominated that the proper to privateness is “the proper to be left alone.”
Mr. X v. Z Hospital (1998) [vi]mounted that once essential rights, along with the proper to privateness, conflict, the proper to sell decency or the general public hobby is asserted.
Ratan Tata has appealed to the Supreme Court in opposition to the ebook of transcripts of conversations with Neera Radia. Tata argued that Radia’s telecell smartphone became tapped via way of means of a central authority organisation to analyze a likely crime, so the recorded communique have to were used best for that purpose. sued. By the usage of the word “or,” the regulation shows that unjustifiable interference with an individual’s privateness can also additionally cause an exception, even supposing the records pertains to public hobby or hobby. increase. However, an brought caveat states that the extra public hobby can also additionally justify the disclosure of merely private records. Furthermore, the regulation does now no longer outline what is “private” data.
LEGAL PROVISIONS OF RIGHT TO PRIVACY
The Privacy Bill, 2011
The Bill protects the residents from identification robbery, together with crook identification robbery and economic identification robbery. The Bill bars intercepting verbal exchange traces with out the permission of a Secretary-degree officer. In addition to that, it’s miles needful that the cloth gathered is destroyed inside 2 months of discontinuance of interception. It guarantees the charter of a Central Communication Interception Review Committee to study and evaluation the interception orders passed.
On the premise of the invoice, no individual whose administrative centre and facts device is inside India shall leak any facts regarding any individual without their consent. The Privacy invoice lays down the charter of the Data Protection Authority of India. The Data Protection Authority of India is to display improvement in pc generation and facts processing. This is performed a way to compare the regulation and study its impact on facts protection. In addition to this, the authority is to obtain tips and provide illustrations to the general public on any count number touching on facts protection.
Protecting Personal Information: A Guide to Safeguarding Privacy
Further, it says any individual who obtains any document or records regarding a person from any officer of the authorities or organization below fake pretext will be punishable with a high-quality of as much as Rs. five Lacs
Subsequent Transition to Privacy Rights
Press and Privacy Rights
Rights to the Press With the development of websites and social networking technologies, the right to privacy has become very difficult to value as a valuable asset. But on the other hand, the peculiarity of a person’s privacy consists of their own secret statistics that are inherently private.
Well, as evidenced by the proliferation of social networking sites and weblog spots, anyone can become a press. Rights to privacy often conflict with rights to the press. Press rights are rights derived from Section 19(1)(a). Your own expressiveness can compete with the moral rights of others. Thus, the idea of decency and taste are added together to rule in such a situation. All cases are great and all rights are special.
Aadhaar Supreme Court Judgment and Right to Privacy
Aadhaar Act grants residents the right to obtain an Aadhaar number by providing biometric and demographic information as part of the registration process.
The Supreme Court was directed to determine whether provisions of the Aadhaar Act, which the Supreme Court declared in 2017 to be a fundamental right, violate the right to privacy. In this regard, many services offered by both private companies and governments require her Aadhaar number to be linked for authentication, effectively requiring the vast majority of people to obtain her Aadhaar number. Please note in particular. The question was therefore not whether this constituted a violation of the right to privacy, but whether it was a legitimate exception. Certain sections of the Aadhaar Act have been overturned or quashed by the Supreme Court for failing to meet the above proportionality standard. But these provisions aside, the Supreme Court has held that the Aadhaar Act as a whole serves and balances the government’s legitimate objectives and is a valid exception to the right to privacy.
SOCIAL IMPACT
The Right to Privacy in the Age of Facebook In that case, the Facebook-owned company put Indian journalists and activists at risk of retaliation and asked intermediaries to identify the original sources of information on the platform. The basic human rights to freedom of expression and freedom of expression are claimed to be undermined in the case. Government Measures to Protect Privacy. Based on the recommendations of the BN Sri Krishna Commission (2018).[vii]
Information technology act Provides protection against some data breaches of computer systems. It includes security measures to prevent unwanted access to computers, computer systems, and data stored on them.
SUGGESTIONS & CONCLUSION
With the recognition of privacy as a basic and fundamental right of an individual, India definitely cannot lag behind. The judgment of the Supreme Court is correct and true and with the growing information technology, privacy needs to be fundamental right. However, it is also true that stringent laws needs introduction after this. An expert committee must be formed to probe into the matter as to how many privacy infringement issues are taking place in India and accordingly legislation exclusively dealing with such problems must be enacted. Data protection laws must be made more stringent and must conform to OECD guidelines. Only one or two sections like section 43A of the IT Act won’t be sufficient to regulate the data protection at such a large scale when schemes like Aadhar are to be implemented.
When it comes to conflict between infringement of privacy and public interest, reasonable care must be taken to choose as to what is more important. Individual interest cannot override public interest. The maxim “salus populi est suprema lex” which means public welfare is the highest law must be maintained in the democracy. Jurisprudentially also, Bentham gave the pain and pleasure theories. Hence, the Government must take into account the pleasure of larger number of people should try to inflict lesser pain. There must be regulation on the arbitrary use of power by the Government with respect to personal information of the people. One of the greatest advantages that India has is that the Privacy bill, 2011 is still pending in the Parliament. Hence, relevant amendments can be made to it before enacting it as legislation.
The article discusses the fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizens of India under Part III of the Constitution of India, 1950, namely the right to privacy, which is part of Article 21 “Right to Life”, which is also known as the heart of the Constitution of India. While the right to privacy helps in creating a distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’. It should be noted that the right to privacy is not always in conflict with rights and is designed in part to ensure state accountability. Although there is no simple solution to balancing rights, most problems can be mitigated by adopting clear definitions in legislation, guidelines, techniques and the surveillance system. Because no rights are absolute, including the right to privacy.
References
[i]1963 AIR 1295 ,1964 SCR (1) 332
[ii] AIR 597 , 1978 SCR (2) 621
[iii] Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech
[iv] 26th September 2018
[v] 1995 AIR 264 , 1994 SCC (6) 632
[vi] 21 september 1998
[vii]https://blog.ipleaders.in/know-the-right-to-privacy-in-india-its-sanctity-in-india/
https://blog.ipleaders.in/know-the-right-to-privacy-in-india-its-sanctity-in-india/
https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/tag/right-to-privacy/
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news
http://docs.manupatra.in/newsline/articles/Upload/1B38C47D-03C1-4F59-8B9C-8AA3FE39B3E5.pdf
Excellent 👍
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks.