Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (Privacy)
Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (Privacy) (2017) held that Right to privacy is a fundamental right protected under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution
Citation: (2017) 10 SCC 1
Case at a Glance
Summary
In this momentous decision, a nine-judge Constitution Bench unanimously declared that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected under the Constitution. The case arose from challenges to the Aadhaar biometric identification scheme. The Court held that privacy is intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and emanates from the freedoms guaranteed in Part III. The judgment overruled earlier decisions in M.P. Sharma (1954) and Kharak Singh (1963) that had denied constitutional protection to privacy. The Court recognized that privacy includes bodily integrity, personal autonomy, informational self-determination, and the freedom to make intimate decisions including those relating to sexual orientation. This landmark ruling laid the foundation for subsequent judgments on LGBTQ+ rights and data protection.
