Prior to the end, Divan had emphasized that civil-political rights like the right to privacy were complementary with socio-economic rights, so protecting privacy and uplifting the poor didn’t need to be at loggerheads.

CJI Dipak Misra asked Divan to refer to a specific paragraph of the privacy judgment, about the dangers to privacy in the “age of information”. Divan proceeded to read out a specific paragraph 306, which dealt with issues of information privacy, specifically how even metadata could be used for data mining and data profiling.

The hearing will now resume on 23 January.