JUSTICE K.S. PUTTASWAMY (RETD.) &ANOTHER v. UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS
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Held
Constitution of India, 1950-Art.21- Right to privacy- c Aadhaar Card Scheme - Collection of biometric data - Writ petition on the ground that the very collection of biometric data for the "Aadhar Card Scheme" is violative of the "right to privacy" u/Art.21 - Plea that in view of judgments of larger benches of Supreme Court in M.P. Sharma and Kharak D Singh, the legal position regarding the existence of the fundamental right to privacy is doubtful -
The cases on hand raise far reaching questions of importance involving interpretation of the Constitution - At the same time, the institutional integrity and judicial discipline require that E pronouncement made by larger benches of Supreme·Court cannot be ignored by smaller benches without appropriately explaining the reasons for not following the pronouncements made by such larger benches- To give a quietus to the kind of controversy raised, the ratio decidendi of M.P. Sharma F and Kharak Singh need to be scrutinized and jurisprudential correctness of the subsequent decisions of this Court where the right to privacy is either asserted or referred be examined and authoritatively decided by a Bench of appropriate G strength - Interim order passed in view of the balance of interest that till the matter is finally decided by the larger -i. Bench, Union of India or the UIDA is directed to proceed in the following manner- (i) the UO/ to give wide publicity in the electronic and print media including radio and television H 99
JUSTICE K.S. PUTTASWAMY (RETD.) &ANOTHER A v. UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS (Writ Petition (Civil) No.494 of2012) B AUGUST11,2015
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A networks, that it is not mandatory for a citizen to obtain an Aadhar card; (ii) The production of Aadhar card will not be a condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen; (iii) The Unique Identification No. or the Aadhar card will not be used by the respondents for any purpose other than the B PDS Scheme (iv) The information obtained while issuing an Aadhar card shall not be used for any other purpose, except as may be directed by a Court for the purpose of criminal investigation.
c M.P Sharma & Ors. v. Satish Chandra & Ors. AIR 1954 SC 300: 1954 SCR1077; Kharak Singh v. State ofU.P & Ors. AIR 1963 SC 1295: 1964 SCR 332; Gobind v. State of M.P & Anr. (1975) 2 sec 148: 1975 (3) SCR 946; R. Rajagopal & Another v. State of Tamil D Nadu & Ors. (1994) 6 SCC 632 :1994 (4) Suppl. SCR 353; People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India & Anr. (1997) 1 SCC 301: 1996 (10) Suppl. SCR 321; Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India & Anr. (1978) 1SCC248: 1978 (2) SCR 621; A.K. Gopalan v. E State of Madras AIR 1950 SC 27: 1950 SCR 88; Rustom Cavasjee Cooper v. Union of India (1970) 1 SCC 248: 1970 (3) SCR 530 - referred to.
Case Law Reference F 1954 SCR 1077 referred to. Para 3 1964 SCR 332 referred to. Para 3 1975 (3) SCR 946 referred to. Para4 1994 (4) Suppl. SCR 353 referred to. Para4 G 1996 (10) Suppl. SCR 321 referred to. Para 4 1978 (2) SCR 621 referred to. Para 8 1950 SCR 88 referred to. Para 8 1970 (3) SCR 530 referred to. Para 8 H
JUSTICE K.S. PUTTASWAMY(RETD.) &ANOTHER v. 101 UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS
CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition (Civil) No. A 494 of2012 Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India WITH Transferred Case (Civil) Nos. 151 & 152 of 2013 B . Writ Petition (Civil) Nos. 829, 833 & 932 of2013 and 37 & 220 of 2015 Transfer Petition (Civil) Nos. 312 & 313 of2014 and 921 of 2015 Contempt Petition (Civil) No. 144 of 2014 in c WP(C) 494 of 2012 Contempt Petition (Civil) No. 470 of 2015 in WP(C) 494 of 2012
Mukul Rohatgi, AG, Pinky Anand, ASG, A. Mariarputham, D Adv. Gen., Shyam Divan, Gopal Subramanium, Soli Sorabjee, Anil B. Diwan, A. K. Sanghi, MeenakshiArora, K. K. Venugopal, Jayant Bhushan, J. S. Attri, Ashok Desai, Sajjan Poovayya, Ajit Kumar Sinha, Suryanarayana Singh, Sr. AAG, Sanchar E Anand, Shiv Mangal Sharma, AAGs, Aaayush Agarwal, Ms. Prasanna S., Niharika, Pratap Venugopal, Gaurav Nair (for K. J. John & Co.), Aishwarya Bhati, TalhaAbdul Rahman, Prateek Chaddha, Ankur Kashyap, Kushag1a Pandey, Anusha Ramesh, Rudra Pratap, Saransh Kumar, Anirban Sen, Neha F Meena, Madhurima Ghosh, T. Gopal, Ankit Goel, Sanjay Kumar Yadav, Anish Kumar Gupta, Geetha Kovilan, P. R. Kovilan, S. S. Rawat, D. S. Mahra, Rahul Narayan, Mohit Singh, Vijay Kumar, Amit Meharia, Dhritiman Das (for Meharia & Company), Dr. AbhishekAtrey, Sella Kumar, Sumit Rajora, R. G Balasubramanian, Ajay Sharma, Devanshi Singh, Binu Tamta, Zoheb Hossain, Kritika Sachdeva, Ranjeeta Rohatgi, Vakul Sharma, Meenkashi Grover, Karan Seth, Gopal Sankaranaryanan, Prerna Priyadarshini, Ankur Talwar, Nidhi, Savita Singh, S. Uadaya Kumar Sagar, Krishna Kumar Singh, H
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A Kuldeep S. Parihar, H. S. Parihar, J. M. Kalia, Ninad Laud, Karan Mathur, Jayant Mohan, K. V. Jagdeshvaran, G. Indira, Corporate Law Group, Varinder Kumar Sharma, Pragati Neekhra, Nachiketa Joshi, Nishant Katneshwarkar, E. C. Agrawala, Abhinav Mukerji, Bihu Sharma, Guntur Prabhakar, B Prerna Singh, Jatinder K. Bhatia, B. Balaji, R. Rakesh Sharma, Mishra Saurabh, Sapam Biswajit Meitei, Z. H. Issac Haiding; S. Vijayanand Sharma, Ashok Kumar Singh, K. N. Madhusoodhanan, T. G. N. Nair,Aruna Mathur, Yusuf Khan, K. Vijay Kumar, Arputham Aruna & Co., K. Enatoli Serna, Edward C Belho, Amit Kumar Singh, S. K. Mendiratta, Monisha Nanda, Mohit D. Ram, Praveen Sehrawat, Priyadarshi Banerjee, Sarans Jain, Gopal. Singh, Rituraj Biswas, Rashmi Srivastava, Anil Shrivastav, Vimla Sinha, Jogy Scaria, Reegan S. Bel, Apoorv Singhal, Jagjit Singh Chhabra, Tapesh Kumar Singh, 0 Mohd. Waquas, C. D. Singh, Sylona Mohapatara, V. G. Pragasam, Prabu Ramasubramanian, Praveen Sehrawat, Nikhil Nayyar, Anitha Shenoy, Soumitra G. Chaudhuri, Anip Sachthey, Abhinandini Sharma, Nishit Agrawal, Anjali E Chauhan, Shrey Kapoor, Saurabh Rajpal, Milind Kumar, Ruchi Kohli, Aniruddha P. Mayee, Garvesh"Kabra, Hemantika Wahi, . Jesal Wahi, Vinakshi Kadan, Saikrishna Rajagopal, Arjun Ranganathan, Julien George, C. K. Sucharita, Kamal Mohan Gupta, Dinkar Ka Ira, Amit Sharma, T. G. Narayan Nair for the F appearing parties. • The following orders of the Court were delivered ORDER
11. In this batch of matters, a scheme propounded by the G Government of India popularly known as "Aadhaar Card Scheme" is under attack on various counts. For the purpose of this order, it is not necessary for us to go into the details of the nature of the scheme and the various counts on which the scheme is attacked. Suffice it to say that under the said scheme the Government of India is collecting and compiling
JUSTICE K.S. PUTTASWAMY (RETD.) &ANOTHER v. 103 UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS
both the demographic a_nd biometric data of the residents of this country to be used for various purposes, the details of which are not relevant at present.
22. One of the grounds of attack on the scheme is that the very collection of such biometric data is violative of the "right 8 to privacy". Some of the petitioners assert that the right to privacy is implied under Article 21 of the Constitution of India while other petitioners assert that such a right emanates not only from Article 21 but also from various other articles embodying the fundamental rights guaranteed under Part-Ill of c the Constitution of India.
33. When the matter was taken up for hearing, Shri Mukul Rohatgi, learned Attorney General made a submission that in view of the judgments of this Court in M.P. Sharma & Others D v. Satish Chandra & Others, AIR 1954 SC 300 and Kharak Singh v. StateofU.P. & Others, AIR 1963SC1295, (decided by Eight and Six Judges respectively} the legal position regarding the existence of the fundamental right to privacy is doubtful. Further, the learned Attorney General also submitted E that in a catena of decisions of this Court rendered subsequently, this Court referred to "right to privacy", contrary to the judgments in the abovementioned cases which resulted in a jurisprudentially impermissible divergence of judicial opinions. F "A power of search and seizure is in any system of jurisprudence an overriding power of the State for the protection of social security and that power is necessarily regulated by law. When the Constitution makers have G thought fit not to subject such regulation to constitutional limitations by recognition of a fundamental right to privacy, analogoustotheAmerican FourthAmendment, we have no justification to import it, into a totally different fundamental right, by some process of H
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A strained construction. [See: M.P. Singh & Others v. Satish Chandra & Others, AIR 1954 SC 300, page 306 para 18] " ... Nor do we considerthatArt. 21 has any relevance in the context as was sought to be suggested by learned 8 counsel for the petitioner. As already
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