Privacy is a fundamental right

• A nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on August 24 unanimously ruled that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty” and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution. SC overruled previous judgments on the privacy issue that ruled that privacy is not a fundamental right.
• Justice Chandrachud in his judgment for himself, Chief Justice Khehar, R.K. Agrawal and S. Abdul Nazeer said that privacy is a concomitant of the right of the individual to exercise control over his or her personality. Natural rights like privacy are inalienable because they are inseparable from the human personality. To live is to live with dignity. Privacy with its attendant values assures dignity to the individual and it is only when life can be enjoyed with dignity can liberty be of true substance. Privacy ensures the fulfillment of dignity.
• The judgement also stated that - Like other rights which form part of the fundamental freedoms protected by Part III, including the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, privacy is not an absolute right. A law which encroaches upon privacy will have to withstand the touchstone of permissible restrictions on fundamental rights. In the context of Article 21 an invasion of privacy must be justified on the basis of a law which stipulates a procedure which is fair, just and reasonable. 
• The Union government had argued that privacy is a common law right. The government argued that right to privacy is not expressly included in the Constitution as the founding fathers rejected or jettisoned the idea of inclusion of privacy as a fundamental right. The centre had termed privacy as a "vague and amorphous" right which cannot be granted primacy to deprive poor people of their rights to life, food and shelter.
• The earlier Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi rejected suggestions that Indians could refuse to provide their iris scans or fingerprints to the government, telling a court "the concept of absolute right over one's body was a myth".
• The judgment will have a crucial bearing on the government’s Aadhaar scheme that collects personal details, biometrics to identify beneficiaries for accessing social benefits and government welfare scheme.
• A bunch of petitions were filed in the Supreme Court in 2015 challenging Aadhaar as a breach of privacy, informational self-determination and bodily integrity. The petitioners argued that Aadhaar enrolment was the means to a “Totalitarian State” and an open invitation for personal data leakage. 
• The government claimed Aadhaar was a panacea to end corruption in public distribution, money laundering and terror funding.
• Attorney general K K Venugopal had argued that right to privacy cannot be a fundamental right has now welcomed the SC decision. He said that whatever the 9-judge bench says is the correct law.
• Three days ago, PM Modi hailed the SC judgement on triple talak as "historic" and said it grants equality to Muslim women. Today on Privacy rights judgement of SC, he maintained stoic silence so far. He is yet to respond. Why?
• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the apex court has accepted the government’s argument that privacy is a fundamental right, but it’s not an absolute right but will be subjected to restrictions which will be fair, just and reasonable. He blamed that the privacy matter went to the Supreme Court because the UPA government brought about Aadhaar without a law. It is too late to contend that privacy will not be a fundamental right.
• Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made a somersault by welcoming the judgement but said should have "reasonable" restrictions. 
• Mukul Rohatgi said that the government should not have diluted their stand in court because the inclusion or exclusion of fundamental rights is only the proviso of Parliament. It is a very unsatisfactory resolution of the dispute. His view is that the framers of the constitution did not intend to make privacy a fundamental right. He said “The fact is, we haven’t won this case. The eight-judge bench of 1954 has been overruled and the Aadhaar issue has been left unresolved. So where is the question of winning?” Had he still been in office as Attorney General, he would have admitted that the government had lost the case.

Today's verdict is a major setback for the government, which had argued that the constitution does not guarantee individual privacy as an inalienable fundamental right. The verdict however does not comment on whether the government's demand for Aadhaar to be linked to all financial transactions amounts to an infringement of privacy. There are fears that the data could be misused by a government that argued Indians have no right to privacy.

Aadhaar has its uses, but it is also an instrument of control and manipulation. It must be only optional, not mandatory. Aadhaar had already violated the privacy rights with the vast majority of the population already enrolled, their information held in insecure databases, and linked to public and private services. Ambedkar's fears of abuse of constitution without amending it are coming true in Modi's India. In a democracy, ruled by majority, it is the duty of majority to uphold the rights & dignity of minorities. Ambedkar also remarked that democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic. Unfortunately Modi & co believes that minorities must toe line with majoritarian wishes with no individual rights etc.

Read the exhaustive article on the judgement

Demonetisation: Can RBI write off notes it promised to honour?

• 'I promise to pay the bearer of this note...' vows the RBI governor on every Indian currency note. Every currency note is a contract between the bearer and the state, something that has been signed in good faith and ratified by the extant law of the land.
• Can the contract be repudiated unilaterally by the state? 
• Can the bearer of the note be shooed away when he demands its execution even when there is no expiry date or conditions on the contract?
• Is the citizen-sovereign contract at the mercy of to executive's fiat taken without consulting the legislature?
• Supreme Court came down hard on the government and refused to entertain its request to put on hold petitions pending in various high courts challenging the decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes. 
• The apex court is right. A decision that affects every Indian's life without going through the necessary legislative process, debate, deliberation and vote - ought to be seriously examined. The other two pillars of a democracy, the legislature and the judiciary must be given an opportunity to scrutinize an executive decision with huge ramifications.
• The government has not used the word demonetization. All that the government has said is that it is withdrawing these notes as being legal tender. But it still leaves us with the question: does the RBI have the obligation to pay the bearer, or is that obligation over, after the government announcement?
• The press release issued by the government talks only about ‘cancelling the legal tender character’ of the high denomination notes, raising questions about whether they are drawing a fine distinction between delegalisation and demonetization.
• Can the state end its contract with citizens ex-parte?
• On what legal grounds can the RBI write off notes it had promised to honour? Can banks just throw out people who go with these notes to banks after the deadline set by the government?
• It has been sold as a panacea for black money, corruption, counterfeit currency, Naxalism and cross-border terrorism. We have been told that Kashmir will become quiet now becomes the youth there have no money to buy stones to throw at security forces.
• Not much has been put out in the public domain by figure of data and hard numbers. Most of the answers have come in the form of high-decibel rhetoric and through speeches where the Prime Minister has displayed an entire range of emotions. But, somebody needs to separate the rhetoric from facts.
• The government can, of course, ignore the Court's warning of there being a possibility of riots if things do not improve, the suffering of people is not mitigated and money is not pumped back into circulation. The queues are getting longer, people are dying outside banks and ATMs. In the rural areas, away from the echo chambers of TV studios and social media, there is panic and anarchy.
• The court has given the government a warning, a wakeup call. It can, of course, continue to remain in denial and commit suicide.

-------- The above was during Nov & Dec 2016 - Demonetization months -------

• On July 4, 2017, The Supreme Court asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday to come up with a policy to offer a window to people who could not deposit their demonetized notes for legitimate reasons before last year’s December 30 deadline.
• If someone has a genuine reason, you cannot deny him the opportunity to deposit the money. You cannot be allowed to deprive a person of his money - a bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar told solicitor general Ranjit Kumar. 
• Don’t force us to pass a three-line order and quash your notification, SC warned.
• You cannot take away someone’s property. If it’s my money and I can establish that, then you cannot deprive me of my property - Khehar said.
• RBI officials put the responsibility on the government to take a call on offering another window for depositing defunct notes.
• On July 17, 2017, The Centre informed the Supreme Court that it will not offer any more chances to deposit or exchange demonetized notes to those who missed the December 30 deadline. The government asserted that granting any further grace period for depositing banned currency notes will defeat the purpose of demonetization, which was done as an exercise in eliminating black money.
• The very object of demonetization and elimination of black money will be defeated if a window is opened for a further period as the persons in possession of the specified bank notes (scrapped notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500) will have had sufficient time and opportunity to carefully plan the reasons and excuses for not depositing the SBNs within the permitted period -- before December 30, 2016, the Ministry of Finance said in an affidavit presented in the Supreme Court earlier in the day.
• The government had earlier assured the people that if people were unable to deposit demonetized currency notes by that day i.e. Dec 30, 2016, they could do so till March 31, 2017 at RBI branches after complying with certain formalities. This was not permitted without citing any reasons.

Any policy, that troubles even a single honest law abiding citizen, is a bad policy.

My View:

How Modi & Co will catch black money etc is their business. Asking honest & genuine citizens to suffer, forego their legitimate rights and lose their hard earned money is unacceptable nonsense. Regrettably, Modi is neither a  wise leader nor a statesman. He is just a third rated leader gifted with rhetoric capabilities and honest & good people, poor & peasants are destined to suffer in Modi's India. To what extent Legislature and Judiciary uphold citizen rights is to be seen. Not much of hope, unless people take their fight for rights into streets, like farmers of MP and Maharashtra.