Evolution of Right to privacy as Fundamental right

Evolution of Right to privacy as Fundamental right

Right To Privacy And Constitution of India



On August 24th, 2017, Supreme Court has given its verdict on Right to privacy inJustice K S Puttaswamy V Union of India, declaring it as a fundamental right of a citizen. This judgment has finally put an end to the long historical legal battle from the past 40-50 years.



In this Article, I am going to discuss how Indian judiciary has evolved with the concept of Right to privacy with time.



Since the 1960s, the Indian judiciary and the Supreme Court in particular, have dealt with the issue of privacy, both as a fundamental right under the constitution and as a common law right. The common thread through all these judgment by the supreme court of India has been to recognize a right to privacy either as a fundamental under the constitution or as a common law right, but to refrain from giving a specific definition before the recent landmark judgement. Instead court has decided to have it evolve on case to case basis. As Justice Mathew put it, “The right to privacy will, therefore, necessarily, have to go through a process of case by case development”.