Justice K.S.Puttaswamy(Retd) vs Union Of India on 26 September, 2018 within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived. No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of Government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as of social excellence. [John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays (Stefan Collini Edition, 1989) (1859)] (emphasis supplied) 409. The first and natural home for a right to privacy is in Article 21 at the very heart of personal liberty and life itself. Liberty and privacy are integrally connected in a way that privacy is often the basic condition necessary for exercise of the right of personal liberty. There are innumerable activities which are virtually incapable of being performed at all and in many cases with dignity unless an individual is left alone or is otherwise empowered to ensure his or her privacy. Birth and death are events when privacy is required for ensuring dignity amongst all civilised people. Privacy is thus one of those rights instrumentally required if one is to enjoy [ Laurence H. Tribe and Michael C. Dorf, Levels of Generality in the Definition of Rights, 57 U CHI L REV 1057 (1990) at p. 1068.] rights specified and enumerated in the constitutional text. 410. This Court has endorsed the view that life must mean something more than mere animal existence [Munn v. Illinois, 1876 SCC OnLine US SC 4 : 24 L Ed 77 : 94 US 113 (1877) (Per Field, J.) as cited in Kharak Singh, (1964) 1 SCR 332 at pp. 347-48] on a number of occasions, beginning with the Constitution Bench in Sunil Batra (1) v. Delhi Admn. [Sunil Batra v. Delhi Admn., (1978) 4 SCC 494 : 1979 SCC (Cri) 155] Sunil Batra [Sunil Batra v. Delhi Admn., (1978) 4 SCC 494 : 1979 SCC (Cri) 155] connected this view of Article 21 to the constitutional value of dignity. In numerous cases, including Francis Coralie Mullin v. UT of Delhi [Francis Coralie Mullin v. UT of Delhi, (1981) 1 SCC 608 : 1981 SCC (Cri) 212] , this Court has viewed liberty as closely linked to dignity. Their relationship to the effect of taking into the protection of life the protection of faculties of thinking and feeling, and of temporary and permanent impairments to those faculties. In Francis Coralie Mullin[Francis Coralie Mullin v. UT of Delhi, (1981) 1 SCC 608 : 1981 SCC (Cri) 212] , Bhagwati, J. opined as follows: (SCC p. 618, para 7) 7. Now obviously, the right to life enshrined in Article 21 cannot be restricted to mere animal existence. It means something much more than just physical survival. In Kharak Singh v. State of U.P. [Kharak Singh v. State of U.P., AIR 1963 SC 1295 : (1963) 2 Cri LJ 329 : (1964) 1 SCR 332], Subba Rao, J. quoted with approval the following passage from the judgment of Field, J. in Munn v. Illinois [Munn v. Illinois, 1876 SCC OnLine US SC 4 : 24 L Ed 77 : 94 US 113 (1877)] to emphasise the quality of life Indian Kanoon - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/127517806/ 68