Justice K.S.Puttaswamy(Retd) vs Union Of India on 26 September, 2018
recognises the autonomy of the individual and the right of every person to make essential choices
which affect the course of life. In doing so privacy recognises that living a life of dignity is essential
for a human being to fulfill the liberties and freedoms which are the cornerstone of the Constitution.
To recognise the value of privacy as a constitutional entitlement and interest is not to fashion a new
fundamental right by a process of amendment through judicial fiat. Neither are the Judges nor is the
process of judicial review entrusted with the constitutional responsibility to amend the Constitution.
But judicial review certainly has the task before it of determining the nature and extent of the
freedoms available to each person under the fabric of those constitutional guarantees which are
protected. Courts have traditionally discharged that function and in the context of Article 21 itself, as
we have already noted, a panoply of protections governing different facets of a dignified existence
has been held to fall within the protection of Article 21.
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297. What, then, does privacy postulate? Privacy postulates the reservation of a private space for the
individual, described as the right to be let alone. The concept is founded on the autonomy of the
individual. The ability of an individual to make choices lies at the core of the human personality. The
notion of privacy enables the individual to assert and control the human element which is
inseparable from the personality of the individual. The inviolable nature of the human personality is
manifested in the ability to make decisions on matters intimate to human life. The autonomy of the
individual is associated over matters which can be kept private. These are concerns over which there
is a legitimate expectation of privacy. The body and the mind are inseparable elements of the human
personality. The integrity of the body and the sanctity of the mind can exist on the foundation that
each individual possesses an inalienable ability and right to preserve a private space in which the
human personality can develop. Without the ability to make choices, the inviolability of the
personality would be in doubt. Recognising a zone of privacy is but an acknowledgment that each
individual must be entitled to chart and pursue the course of development of personality. Hence
privacy is a postulate of human dignity itself. Thoughts and behavioural patterns which are intimate
to an individual are entitled to a zone of privacy where one is free of social expectations. In that zone
of privacy, an individual is not judged by others. Privacy enables each individual to take crucial
decisions which find expression in the human personality. It enables individuals to preserve their
beliefs, thoughts, expressions, ideas, ideologies, preferences and choices against societal demands of
homogeneity. Privacy is an intrinsic recognition of heterogeneity, of the right of the individual to be
different and to stand against the tide of conformity in creating a zone of solitude. Privacy protects
the individual from the searching glare of publicity in matters which are personal to his or her life.
Privacy attaches to the person and not to the place where it is associated. Privacy constitutes the
foundation of all liberty because it is in privacy that the individual can decide how liberty is best
exercised. Individual dignity and privacy are inextricably linked in a pattern woven out of a thread of
diversity into the fabric of a plural culture.
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322. Privacy is the constitutional core of human dignity. Privacy has both a normative and
descriptive function. At a normative level privacy subserves those eternal values upon which the
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