Right to privacy not fundamental right: Centre tells Supreme Court

The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court since privacy was multifaceted, it could not be treated as a fundamental right.

Attorney General K K Venugopal resumed his arguments before a nine-judge bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar, stressing that it was not a fundamental right. “There is no fundamental right to privacy and even if it is assumed as a fundamental right, it is multifaceted. Every facet can’t be ipso facto considered a fundamental right,” Venugopal told the bench, which also comprised Justices J Chelameswar, S A Bobde, R K Agrawal, Rohinton Fali Nariman, Abhay Manohar Sapre, D Y Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and S Abdul Nazeer.

He said “informational privacy” could not be a right to privacy and it could not ever be a fundamental right. The Attorney General had yesterday told the bench the right to privacy could be a fundamental right, but could not be “absolute”. The contentious issue of whether the right was a fundamental one was referred to a larger bench in 2015 after the Centre underlined two judgements delivered in 1950 and 1962 by the apex court that had held it was not a fundamental right.

The apex court had earlier observed the …read more