F
power in the hands of the executive under the Impugned
Provisions and Impugned Notification would violate the
requirement of having adequate procedural safeguards, as
mandated in Puttaswamy (Privacy). Therefore, oversight by
another branch of government would be the minimum
requirement for surveillance provisions to pass muster.
ii.
Specifically, based on the rulings in Puttaswamy (Privacy) and
Puttaswamy (Aadhaar), judicial oversight would be the
minimum requirement for this system to pass constitutional
muster, as the judiciary alone is competent to decide whether
specific instances of surveillance are proportionate, especially to
decide whether less onerous alternatives are available and in
balancing the importance of the government objective with the
rights of the individual / individuals impacted. It is obvious that
a Court, alone, is competent to decide the constitutionality of
individual instances of surveillance and test it on the
proportionality standard.
Nothing in the Court rulings in
Puttaswamy (Privacy) and Puttaswamy (Aadhaar) suggests
that a finding on proportionality can be returned by an executive
authority.
iii.
However, the requirement of judicial oversight goes beyond the
issue of institutional competence. It is also an minimum
requirement in order to satisfy the requirement of “due process”.
By design, surveillance - which operates in secret - curtails the
operation of Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution, as a person
who suspects that she is under surveillance, in many cases will
have no way of proving it, and cannot therefore establish a
breach in accordance with Articles 32 and 226, until that
information is revealed. The effective exclusion of Articles 32
and 226 therefore entails that, for all practical purposes, the
decision of the Executive on whether fundamental rights have
been validly and reasonably infringed, is final. It is respectfully