D upon a showing of physical injury as a threshold requirement to demonstrate the violation of a fundamental right. The Petitioners respectfully submit that the very existence of a surveillance system impacts the right to privacy and chills the exercise of liberties under Articles 19 and 21, and prevents people from thinking about, reading and exchanging unorthodox, controversial or provocative ideas. Regardless of whether or not a citizen knows that her email is being read by the government, the perceived danger, founded on reasonable suspicion that this may happen, itself impacts the citizen’s ability to express, receive and discuss such ideas. This was explained by Justice Subba Rao in his dissenting opinion in Kharak Singh v Union of India, [1964] 1 SCR 332, and has, most recently, been upheld by this Hon’ble Court in Puttaswamy (Privacy). ii. Second, in the absence of parliamentary or judicial oversight, such electronic surveillance gives the executive government the power to influence the subject of surveillance as well as all classes of persons. This is particularly dangerous since the provision is agnostic with respect to the subject of surveillance, and surveillance takes place without any checks outside the executive wing of government. The very existence of such disproportionate power vesting with one wing of government would violate not only Part III of the Constitution, which impacts the vertical relationship between the citizen and the State; but would also impact the horizontal separation of power between the executive, legislature and judiciary. The fact that surveillance, particularly a structure such as the one erected by the Impugned Provisions and the Impugned Notification, seriously impacts the right to privacy is a proposition that is no longer res integra. This Court has taken this view in People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India (1997) 1 SCC 301 (the “Wiretapping