The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Thursday its judgment on the vexatious issue whether the right to privacy can be held as a fundamental right.

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According to PTI, a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Khehar had said that the larger bench would examine the correctness of the two judgments delivered in the cases of Kharak Singh and MP Sharma which held that privacy was not a fundamental right.

The nine judges who will be pronouncing the verdict are: Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, justices Jasti Chelameswar, SA Bobde, RK Agarwal, Rohinton Nariman, AM Sapre, DY Chandrachud, SK Kaul and S Abdul Nazeer.

Meet the 9-judge bench who will decide if privacy is a fundamental right

Kharak Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh's case brought to court the issue of state surveillance as against the right to privacy. Kharak Singh, an accused in dacoity case, was let off due to the lack of evidence and challenged regular surveillance by police authorities on the grounds of infringement of his fundamental rights.

MP Sharma's case was related to the search of documents of Dalmia group companies following investigations into the business of Dalmia Jain Airways Ltd. The group was registered in July 1946 and liquidated in June 1952. An investigation revealed malpractices within the company and highlighted attempts from shareholders to hide actual details by submitting false balance sheets.

What are the MP Sharma and Kharak Singh's cases about and why are they important?

"For example, if the government tomorrow says that your Aadhaar card will be required for your travel and income tax filings, that will be an unreasonable restriction," he said.

"Any law which is made to restrict this fundamental right will have to be examined keeping Article 21 in mind," said Prashant Bhushan.

News reports are now saying that the five-judge bench will now test the validity of Aadhaar on the basis of the fact that right to privacy is now a fundamental right.

- Decision in MP Sharma overruled. - Decision in Kharak Singh, to the extent it says Right to Privacy is not part of Right to Life, is over ruled - Right to Privacy is an intrinsic part of life and personal liberty under Article 21. - Decisions subsequent to Kharak Singh which held privacy as part of right to life are correct. - A number of writ petitions were tagged along with Justice K Puttaswamy’s petition on Aadhaar, which led to the constitution of this 9 Judge Bench. A slew of Senior Advocates had appeared for various parties in the case.

He also doesn't expect the impact of the judgment to be visible immediately. "Don't expect life to change from tomorrow," he said, adding it will take at least 2-3 years from now for the policies to be tweaked and for the people to feel the real difference.

"I don't think these will have to change. It doesn't make any sense to do that," he told CNBC-TV18 in an interview. He also said no right is absolute as there will be reasonable restrictions and one will have to wait for the full judgment to understand the real implications.

BJD MP Jay Panda, who has moved private members bills on Aadhaar and right to privacy, doesn't think that government policies such as mandatory linking of Aadhaar with PAN or those that made Aadhaar must for welfare schemes may need to change after the judgment.

Policies like mandatory linking of Aadhaar-PAN may not have to be changed, says BJD MP Jay Panda

"We, the people of India, are once more able to stand with our heads high in the global community. We are grateful to the experts from the legal community who have tirelessly and freely striven to preserve the Constitution of India, itself the distillation of decades of sacrifice against the hegemony of discrimination," Vickram Crishna, one of the petitioners in the right to privacy case, said.

"Very importantly, it trashes the state position that the poverty-stricken portion of the population is less than human, and unable to appreciate or deserve freedom and liberty, the position that has been repeatedly cited in defence of inefficient and incompetent governance."

"The Supreme Court has, in a unanimous verdict, reaffirmed that personal privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution of India. This unequivocally puts to rest any further attempts to create mechanisms for intrusion into the personal lives of people in India."

Verdict trashes state position that poor people are unable to appreciate freedom, says one of the petitioners

This will largely mean that the fundamental right to privacy will be subject to "reasonable restrictions" (Art. 19) and can be limited only by fair, just and reasonable "procedure established by law" (Art. 21).

(iv) Decisions subsequent to Kharak Singh which have enunciated the position in (iii) above lay down the correct position in law.

3. (iii) The right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

2. (ii) The decision in Kharak Singh to the extent that it holds that the right to privacy is not protected by the Constitution stands over-ruled;

1. (i) The decision in M P Sharma which holds that the right to privacy is not protected by the Constitution stands over-ruled;

The reference is disposed of in the following terms:

The judgment is now online in a whopping 547-page document with 6 different judicial opinions taking different approaches. But the impact of the case will likely be most felt through the following "Order of the Court" signed by all 9 judges:

Judgment out, right to privacy will be subject to 'reasonable restrictions'

The 91-year-old is a former Karnataka High Court judge. He had in 2012 filed a petition challenging the mandatory Aadhaar use for PDS, LPG, MNREGA, Pension scheme, Jan Dhan Yojna. It is this petition that set off many other petitions and an order against making Aadhaar mandatory for government services

"What the Supreme Court will rule, I cannot say. I will also wait anxiously for the judgment. I am expecting a unanimous judgment,” he has been quoted as saying. He also said that the judgment will be 500-600 pages.

Justice KS Puttaswamy, whose original petition led to the right to privacy judgment today, had predicted on Wednesday that the Supreme Court's nine-judge Constitution bench will come out with a unanimous decision, according to an article by Bar and Bench .

"LGBT rights cannot be dismissed as so-called rights," CNN-News18 quoted the apex court as saying in the judgment.

This will have to be decided on a case-by-case basis in the future and will depend a lot on the individual judge's approach to the issue. In any case, as some others have pointed out, this is only the beginning and just one step in the larger battle over the right to privacy in India.

However, a word of caution: the court has not gone deep into what sort of restrictions and for what reasons the government may impose them in restricting privacy.

Section 377 has to go as a result of this judgment and the constitutional validity of beef bans, bans on commercial surrogacy, surveillance laws, among others will all become dubious as a result of this judgment.

The Supreme Court's unanimous judgment declaring the existence of a fundamental right to privacy is nothing short of historic in every sense of the term. It is a revolution in the understanding of fundamental rights as far as the Supreme Court is concerned and will have an impact in many cases beyond the Aadhar case.

Fundamental right to privacy will have impact on Section 377, beef ban, bans on commerical surrogacy

Watch: SC says a woman's right to bear or abort a child is part of her privacy

"I do not think that anybody would like to be told by the State as to what they should eat or how they should dress or whom they should be associated with either in their personal, social or political life," News18 quoted Justice Chelameshwar as saying in his order.

Nobody would like to be told by the State as to what they should eat or how they should dress: Justice Chelameshwar's order

Here are excerpts of what Justice Chandrachud said during the hearing

Congress president Sonia Gandhi says SC verdict on right to privacy strikes at "unbridled encroachment and surveillance" by the State and its agencies on the life of the common man. PTI

Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar said the ruling also "significantly boosts India’s attractiveness as a safe destination for global sourcing". It will ensure that protection of citizen's privacy is a "cardinal principle" in India's growing digital economy, he said. PTI

The Supreme Court's declaring privacy as a fundamental right will enhance citizens' trust in digital services and help in their wider adoption, IT industry body Nasscom said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was prompt to react to the triple talaq verdict by Supre Court but on Thursday his silence after the Right to Privacy judgment is being questioned.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad says govt welcomes Supreme Court verdict, says UPA government had implemented Aadhaar without any law. Right to Privacy is not absolute and the government has an impartial view on it, Prasad said. He added that UPA did not plan Aaadhaar well. - CNN-News18

The judgment should also speed up the creation of strong data privacy laws as well. The judgment will have wider ramifications with the government having to come up with policies, regulations and laws to complement this right of privacy for individuals. Even the consequences of violating the right should be thought out. Read more .

It is a landmark judgment as it will trigger a lot of change in our society. It will create a lot of trust, specially for the outside world. Countries such as the US, UK, Japan, as well as the EU have strict privacy laws. It is a sign of a strong democracy. If concerns such as data privacy are addressed eventually, it will create a good climate for investment. In the long term, it will good for our society as well as for the economy.

The historic Supreme Court verdict on Thursday has forced the Narendra Modi government to acknowledge that right to privacy is not just a common-law right but a fundamental right of the citizens assured by the Constitution. Hopefully, the verdict will enable any common man to challenge any demand either made by the government or private parties seeking his personal data. Also now he has a right to demand protection for his personal data, including his biometrics, which he has already shared with various agencies and companies. Read more .

Aadhaar has shown its utility in a very short span of time. It is completely safe and secure. The government stands committed to the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court on Thursday, says IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. - CNN-News18

The application of this bench's decision to the ongoing Aadhaar challenge — that's what is at stake. As we wait to peruse the text of the current judgment, it is important to assess the more granular issues related to the biometric-enabled Aadhaar identification process and its confluence with government services. In principle, we are faced with issues of consent. In practice, we struggle with infrastructural deficiencies and an absence of safeguards and accountability. Read more here.

"Welcome the SC verdict upholding right to privacy as an intrinsic part of individual's liberty, freedom and dignity. A victory for every Indian," said Gandhi on Twitter. "SC decision marks a major blow to fascist forces. A sound rejection of the BJP's ideology of suppression through surveillance," he added.

"In my view, it (Section 377) was rightly struck down or read down by Justice A.P. Shah. Unfortunately, that was reversed by the Supreme Court," said Chidambaram.

Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday said that with the Supreme Court ruling that right to privacy is a fundamental right it would be possible to ask the apex court to take a second look at Section 377, which criminalises gay sex.

The issue now is whether Aadhaar should be struck down on grounds of violation of privacy. Biju Janata Dal’s Baijayant Jay Panda has been arguing – and rightly so – that Aadhaar should not be junked on privacy concerns and that a privacy law is needed regardless of Aadhaar. This is the right, nuanced, line to take. Today’s judgement appears to be doing just that. What has been the objection to Aadhaar? That it involves capturing of biometrics and its use for verification and that this involves an invasion of an individual’s very personal space. Further, that Aadhaar is mandatory to receive welfare benefits and, therefore, there is an element of coercion involved. Read more.

Now, one knows that all fundamental rights come with reasonable restrictions but this explicit mention of “preventing the dissipation of social welfare benefits” is significant. This is not the unequivocal victory that the opponents of Aadhaar would have wanted.

What the judgment does is to open a bundle of possibilities. Privacy is a wide-ranging concept and now many freedoms could find new life under it. Read more here.

It important here to remember that only the theoretical Right to Privacy has been established by this judgment. It has removed the earlier hurdles of the cases of MP Sharma and Kharak Singh which had held Right to Privacy not to be a Fundamental Right. However, right at this moment, your day-to-day life remains unchanged.

Udayaditya Banerjee assisted Shyam Diwan, who appeared for the writ petitioners in the case. One of the petitions has been drafted by him. Watch the lawyer speak here .

Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya is on the petitioners for applicant MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar. Aadhaar is another matter altogether and a separate bench will analyse it, he says. Watch him speak here .

Finance minister Arun Jaitley welcomes Supreme Court's verdict, says object of restrictions will vary from case to case and can must be fair.

The court cannot add fundamental rights or amend the Constitution, former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said adding that it's a case of judicial overreach and there has been much ado about nothing.

Justice DY Chandrachud, one of the nine judges, said, "Privacy includes at its core the preservation of personal intimacies, the sanctity of family life, marriage, procreation, the home and sexual orientation. Privacy also connotes a right to be left alone." Read more here.

The 547- page judgement added that the Right to Privacy and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed by articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.

Delhi lawyer Prasanna S, who assisted some of the petitioners in this case, says a nine-judge bench does not usually assemble for a verdict. This is the 15th or 16th time that a nine-judge bench has come together for a big decision. Watch him speak here .

The Dialogue, a Delhi based public-policy startup conducted the Policy Talk with Biju Janata Dal's Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Panda on data protection, privacy, and the Data (Privacy and Protection) Bill 2017, which he tabled in the Parliament. Watch Panda speak on privacy here .

Rahul Narayan, an advocate of Supreme Court, goes on record for one of the petitioners in this case, says the Right to Privacy is an important part of Article 21 and the implications for it will be huge for every citizen of the country. Watch the lawyer speak here .

Govt threw the Right to Privacy into doubt in 2015, says advocate Rahul Narayan

The verdict was reserved after hearing marathon arguments for six days over a period of three weeks, during which submissions were advanced in favour and against the inclusion of the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

Justice Khehar, who read the operative portion of the judgement , said the subsequent verdicts pronounced after MP Sharma and Kharak Singh have laid down the correct position of the law. Before pronouncing the judgement, the CJI said that among the nine judges some of them have authored different orders.

Section 377 may be on the cards after Right to Privacy judgment

Not just Modi, Union minister Smriti Irani and Sushma Swaraj have also tweeted about Deuba's visit but nothing about the Right to Privacy verdict.

"Narendra Modi government welcomes the judgment and it has been of the view, particularly with respect to Aadhaar, that Right to Privacy should be a fundamental right," Prasad said.

While Modi was prompt in supporting the triple talaq verdict, calling it 'historic' just minutes after the ruling, he is yet to issue a statement on the Right to Privacy ruling of Thursday. The only official response from the government has come from Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

He said it is an individual's choice as to who enters his house, how he lives and in what relationship.

Elaborating on the privacy issue, Justice Kaul used an anecdote that "if the individual permits someone to enter the house, it does not mean that others can enter the house."

Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who wrote a separate but concurring judgement with eight other judges, expressed apprehension that the growth and development of technology has created new instruments for the possible invasion of privacy by the State, including through surveillance, profiling and data collection and processing.

Right to Privacy must be protected against state, non-state actors, says Justice Sanjay Kaul

"An individual's rights to refuse life-prolonging medical treatment or terminate his life is another freedom which fall within the zone of the right of privacy," Justice Chelameswar said in his 44-page verdict.

"Concerns of privacy arise when the state seeks to intrude into the body of subjects. Corporeal punishments were not unknown to India, their abolition is of a recent vintage. Forced feeding of certain persons by the state raises concerns of privacy," he said.

Justice J Chelameswar , who wrote a separate but concurring judgement, also touched upon other aspects like consumption of food and a woman's freedom of choice on whether to terminate pregnancy.

Justice DY Chandrachud, one of the nine judges, said, "Privacy includes at its core the preservation of personal intimacies, the sanctity of family life, marriage, procreation, the home and sexual orientation. Privacy also connotes a right to be left alone." Read more here.

The 547- page judgement added that the Right to Privacy and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed by articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.

Delhi lawyer Prasanna S, who assisted some of the petitioners in this case, says a nine-judge bench does not usually assemble for a verdict. This is the 15th or 16th time that a nine-judge bench has come together for a big decision. Watch him speak here .

The Dialogue, a Delhi based public-policy startup conducted the Policy Talk with Biju Janata Dal's Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Panda on data protection, privacy, and the Data (Privacy and Protection) Bill 2017, which he tabled in the Parliament. Watch Panda speak on privacy here .

Rahul Narayan, an advocate of Supreme Court, goes on record for one of the petitioners in this case, says the Right to Privacy is an important part of Article 21 and the implications for it will be huge for every citizen of the country. Watch the lawyer speak here .

Govt threw the Right to Privacy into doubt in 2015, says advocate Rahul Narayan

The verdict was reserved after hearing marathon arguments for six days over a period of three weeks, during which submissions were advanced in favour and against the inclusion of the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

Justice Khehar, who read the operative portion of the judgement , said the subsequent verdicts pronounced after MP Sharma and Kharak Singh have laid down the correct position of the law. Before pronouncing the judgement, the CJI said that among the nine judges some of them have authored different orders.

Section 377 may be on the cards after Right to Privacy judgment

A superb judgment by SC. Privacy a right. But not absolute. Recognises that key elements to be worked out in data protection law. https://t.co/UnwtkoQbe6

Not just Modi, Union minister Smriti Irani and Sushma Swaraj have also tweeted about Deuba's visit but nothing about the Right to Privacy verdict.

"Narendra Modi government welcomes the judgment and it has been of the view, particularly with respect to Aadhaar, that Right to Privacy should be a fundamental right," Prasad said.

While Modi was prompt in supporting the triple talaq verdict, calling it 'historic' just minutes after the ruling, he is yet to issue a statement on the Right to Privacy ruling of Thursday. The only official response from the government has come from Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

He said it is an individual's choice as to who enters his house, how he lives and in what relationship.

Elaborating on the privacy issue, Justice Kaul used an anecdote that "if the individual permits someone to enter the house, it does not mean that others can enter the house."

Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who wrote a separate but concurring judgement with eight other judges, expressed apprehension that the growth and development of technology has created new instruments for the possible invasion of privacy by the State, including through surveillance, profiling and data collection and processing.

Right to Privacy must be protected against state, non-state actors, says Justice Sanjay Kaul

"An individual's rights to refuse life-prolonging medical treatment or terminate his life is another freedom which fall within the zone of the right of privacy," Justice Chelameswar said in his 44-page verdict.

"Concerns of privacy arise when the state seeks to intrude into the body of subjects. Corporeal punishments were not unknown to India, their abolition is of a recent vintage. Forced feeding of certain persons by the state raises concerns of privacy," he said.

Justice J Chelameswar , who wrote a separate but concurring judgement, also touched upon other aspects like consumption of food and a woman's freedom of choice on whether to terminate pregnancy.

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Thursday its judgment on the vexatious issue whether the right to privacy can be held as a fundamental right under the Constitution.

A nine-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar had on 2 August reserved its verdict after hearing marathon arguments for six days over a period of three weeks, during which submissions were advanced in favour and against the inclusion of the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

Besides CJI Khehar, the other judges of the nine-judge bench are Justices J Chelameswar, SA Bobde, RK Agrawal, RF Nariman, AM Sapre, DY Chandrachud, SK Kaul and S Abdul Nazeer.

The high-voltage hearing saw a battery of senior lawyers, including Attorney-General KK Venugopal, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Arvind Datar, Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subaramaniam, Shyam Divan, Anand Grover, CA Sundaram and Rakesh Dwivedi, advancing arguments either in favour of or against the inclusion of right to privacy as a fundamental right.

The contentious issue had emerged when the apex court was dealing with a batch of petitions challenging the Centre's move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes.

Initially, on 7 July, a three-judge bench had said that all issues arising out of Aadhaar should finally be decided by a larger bench and the Chief Justice of India would take a call on the need for setting up a constitution bench.

The matter was then mentioned before CJI Khehar who set up a five-judge constitution bench to hear the matter.

However, the five-judge constitution bench on 18 July decided to set up a nine-judge bench to decide whether the right to privacy can be declared a fundamental right under the Constitution.

The decision to set up the nine-judge bench was taken to examine the correctness of two apex court judgments delivered in the cases of Kharak Singh and MP Sharma, decided by six and eight-judge benches respectively, in which it was held that this right was not a fundamental right.

While the Kharak Singh judgment was delivered in 1962, the MP Sharma verdict was reported in 1954.

While reserving the verdict on 2 August, the bench had voiced concern over the possible misuse of personal information in the public domain and said that protection of the concept of privacy in the all-pervading technological era was a "losing battle".

During the arguments, the bench had on 19 July observed that the right to privacy cannot be an absolute right and the state may have some power to put reasonable restrictions.

The attorney-general had also contended that right to privacy cannot fall in the bracket of fundamental rights as there were binding decisions of larger benches that it was only a common law right evolved through judicial decisions.

The Centre had termed privacy as a "vague and amorphous" right which cannot be granted primacy to deprive poor people of their rights to life, food and shelter.

The high-profile arguments also saw the apex court asking searching questions about the contours of right to privacy in the digital age when personal information was randomly shared with all types of government and private entities.

The bench had wanted to know about the tests which could be used to regulate and enforce privacy right when there could be "legitimate or illegitimate" use of data.

Meanwhile, the petitioners had contended that the right to privacy was "inalienable" and "inherent" to the most important fundamental right which is the right to liberty.

They had said that right to liberty, which also included right to privacy, was a pre-existing "natural right" which the Constitution acknowledged and guaranteed to the citizens in case of infringement by the state.

The apex court, during the hearing, favoured overarching guidelines to protect private information in public domain and said there was a need to "maintain the core of privacy" as the notion of privacy was fast becoming irrelevant in an all-pervading technological era.

With inputs from agencies