SC’s nine-judge bench to decide if privacy is a fundamental right

COURT REFUTES ATTORNEY GENERAL KK VENUGOPAL’S ARGUMENT THAT CONSTITUTION OMITTED THE ISSUE OF RIGHT TO PRIVACY

NEWDELHI: Is the right to privacy a fundamental right?

The question, which forms the basis of petitions that challenge Aadhaar for violating privacy, will be answered by a nine-judge constitution bench.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the constitution bench would revisit its rulings that said the right to privacy was not a fundamental right and then hear petitions against the 12-digit biometric identity number.

“During the course of hearing today it has become essential for us to determine whether right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution,” a fivejudge bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar said.

The nine-judge bench is expected to take up and conclude its hearing on Wednesday itself.

“The determination of this question would essentially entail whether the decision recorded by an eight-judge bench in 1954 and also by a sixjudge bench in 1962 that there is no such fundamental right is the correct expression of constitutional provisions,” the court said. It decided to refer the matter to a larger bench after the Centre cited the two judgments to argue that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right.

“Our founding fathers have encompassed all rights. But consciously this is omitted,” attorney general KK Venugopal said.

But justice J Chelameswar said it was illogical to argue that the Constitution didn’t mention the right to privacy while com- mon law identified it. “Textually it is correct today that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution. But even freedom of press is not expressly stated. This court has interpreted it,” the judge said, adding the earlier verdicts should be looked at again. “One can’t overlook the constant view held by smaller benches in their later judgments holding right to privacy is a fundamental right.”

‘POST NOTE BAN, AADHAAR-ACCOUNT LINKING UP’

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move had an unexpected beneficiary — a substantial increase in Aadhaar enrolment and its linking with bank accounts, a report released on Tuesday said.

Over 1.14 billion people or 95% of India’s population now have an Aadhaar number.

The monthly average of bank accounts opened with Aadhaar before demonetisation was just 3.1 million, meaning only 19.8 million bank accounts were seeded with Aadhaar since April 2016.

The Status of Aadhaar 2016-17 report showed that in December, 8.4 million bank accounts were linked with the 12-digit unique identification number, giving an unexpected fillip to the government’ s bid to track money flow. The momentum continued even after demonetisation, resulting in 47.1 million bank accounts or about half of all accounts in India being linked with Aadhaar by March 2017.

“As the government pushed for cashless economy, more people came forward to link their bank accounts with Aadhaar, especially those benefitting from government schemes,” said a Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) official.

The notebandiperiod also saw an 8% increase in payment through Aadhaar-linked bridges and 6% jump inf res henrol men ts for UID.