SC reserves order on right to privacy

The nine-judge Supreme Court bench on Wednesday reserved its verdict on the question if the right to privacy should be treated as a fundamental right.

The bench also stressed on the need to protect privacy in the era of technology though it could be a “losing battle”.

The Constitution bench presided over by Chief Justice J S Khehar, heard marathon arguments for six days over a period of three weeks.

Senior lawyers, including Attorney General K K Venugopal, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Arvind Datar, Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subaramaniam, Shayam Divan, Anand Grover, C A Sundaram and Rakesh Dwivedi, traded arguments in favour and against considering the right to privacy as fundamental.

The judgement would be delivered on or before August 27 as Chief Justice Khehar would demit the office on that day.

The bench said there was a need to “maintain the core of privacy” as the notion of privacy was fast becoming irrelevant in an all-pervading technological era.

“We are fighting a losing battle of privacy. We do not know for what purpose the information will be used. This is exactly a cause for concern,” the bench, which also comprised justices J Chelameswar, S A Bobde, R K Agrawal, R F Nariman, A M Sapre, D Y Chandrachud, S K Kaul and S Abdul Nazeer, said.