There Is No Dignity Without Privacy: Senior Advocate Anand Grover [Read Written Submission]

Addressing the mammoth nine-Judge Constitution Bench set up for the purpose, Senior Advocate Anand Grover submitted that privacy is actually the bulwark of other Fundamental Rights, especially those that are strung by the “golden thread of the Indian Constitution”-- Articles 14 (equality), Article 19 (freedom) and 21 (right to life and liberty).

“If privacy is stripped off, other fundamental rights become vulnerable. For example, pursuant to the NALSA which affirmed the right to self-determination to one’s gender. Many transgender persons (who changed their gender from male to female or vice versa) need such private information to be protected so that their dignity, personal autonomy and equality is not impaired in any manner,” he asserted.

In the same vein, he contended that there exists no dignity without privacy, and that “privacy has dimensions which are very wide and impacts vulnerable groups disproportionately for whom protection of privacy is real and urgent.”

Mr. Grover contended that the decisions in the M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh are not good law. He highlighted the fact that in MP Sharma v. Satish Chandra, District Magistrate, AIR 1954 SC 300 no issue of privacy was raised by the Petitioners under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

“This cannot be the ratio of the case. In any event, it cannot be stretched to hold that privacy is not found in the Indian Constitution in other articles, including Article 21,” he, therefore, submitted.

Moreover, Mr. Grover contended that the judgment in Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1963 SC 1295 has been overruled in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, 1978 1 SCC 248. It is the law laid down in the case of Gobind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (1975) 2 SCC 148 that needs to be upheld, he submitted.

Mr. Grover, hence, concluded, “Therefore, it is not correct to say that privacy is not a part of constitutional law in India. The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution of India by virtue of the minority judgment in Kharak Singh, which was declared to be the correct law in Maneka Gandhi and by Gobind as also followed by subsequent judgments of this Hon’ble Court.”