SC verdict 'affirms' govt position on right to privacy: Ravi Shankar Prasad

The Centre on Thursday signalled it was unwilling to buckle under opposition pressure, as union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sought to push the blame on Congress by saying that Aadhar scheme was dragged into a legal tangle because of UPA bringing it without legislative support.

Welcoming the Supreme Court's verdict on right to privacy,  Prasad told reporters that it has only "affirmed" the government position on the issue which always held the view on having fair, just and reasonable restriction on Aadhar. "The Supreme Court has affirmed what the government had said in Parliament while moving the Aadhar Bill. Privacy should be a fundamental right subject to reasonable restrictions," law minister said at a press conference.

The minister stated the Congress-led UPA government had introduced biometric scheme without any legislative support and due to that the question of the UPA's Aadhar was challenged before the judiciary. "The NDA government ensured that necessary legislation was approved by Parliament," Prasad asserted.

On former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi's position before the Supreme Court that citizen's don't have absolute right over their bodies which had sparked a huge debate, the minister tried to come out of it by insisting that the total thrust was in consonance with the Constitutional bench finding. "It was an argument put forth in the court but the total thrust of the stand of the AG and finance minister Arun Jaitley during Aadhar debate in parliament has been upheld by the Supreme Court," he said.
 
Jaitley, as per the press release, during the debate in Rajya Sabha on Aadhar bill, had said, that the legislation "pres-supposes that privacy and is based on the premise and that it is too late in the date to content that privacy is not a fundamental right. So I do except that probable privacy is a fundamental right....".

Prasad stated the Aadhar law has special safeguards to protect privacy and to bring a data protection law the government is waiting for a report of a committee headed by Justice Sri Krishna.  

Responding to Congress charge that the verdict was a rejection of the BJP's ideology of "suppression through surveillance", Prasad stated that during the Emergency when fundamental rights were suspended, Congress government had argued before the SC that a " person could be killed and deprived even of his life (let alone liberty) and he would be remediless".