oppn parties Dear Government, Give us our Private Space

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court will appoint an observer for the mayoral poll in Chandigarh
  • Government makes it compulsory for plastic carry bag makers to put a QR or barcode with their details on such bags
  • GBS outbreak in Pune leaves 73 ill with 14 on ventilator. GBS is a rare but treatable autoimmune disease
  • Madhya Pradesh government banned sale and consumption of liquor at 19 religious sites including Ujjain and Chitrakoot
  • Odisha emerges at the top in the fiscal health report of states while Haryana is at the bottom
  • JSW Steel net profit takes a massive hit of 70% in Q3
  • Tatas buy 60% stake in Pegatron, the contractor making iPhone's in India
  • Stocks return to negative zone - Sensex sheds 329 points to 76190 and Nifty loses 113 points to 23092
  • Bumrah, Jadeja and Yashasvi Jaiswal make the ICC Test team of the year even as no Indian found a place in the ODI squad
  • India take on England in the second T20 today at Chennai. They lead the 5-match series 1-0
  • Ravindra Jadeja excels in Ranji Trophy, takes 12 wickets in the match as Saurashtra beat Delhi by 10 wickets. All other Team India stars disappoint in the national tournament
  • Madhya Pradesh HC says collectors must not apply NSA "under political pressure and without application of mind"
  • Oxfam charged by CBI over violation of FCRA
  • Indian students in the US have started quitting part-time jobs (which are not legally allowed as per visa rules) over fears of deportation
  • Enforcement Directorate is reported to have frozen nearly Rs 500cr in the accounts of 8 payment gateways including Paytm, Razorpay and PayU
Nation celebrates Republic Day with pomp and vigour //////// Dazzling parade showcasing India's military might and culture in Delhi with Indonesian President as chief guest
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Dear Government, Give us our Private Space

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2015-09-25 12:17:07

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
As an Indian citizen, should your life be an open book? Or are you entitled to privacy? Any sane person will opt for the latter. But the question remains: privacy of what kind and till what extent?

The government does not seem to think that the right to privacy is guaranteed to Indian citizens by the constitution. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has told the Supreme Court that neither is a right to privacy part of any fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution nor are different Supreme Court orders on the subject clear enough to deduce the same. This is a very myopic view of the subject. Rohatgi has asked the court to examine the issue and spell out the “contours” of such a right by constituting a five judge constitutional bench for the purpose.

Let as for the moment forget about Article 21 and the various SC judgments on the subject. Let us think about law. First of all, law is not static â€" it evolves with time. Then, every law need not be expressly written into the statute books â€" some are inferred or deduced from other laws or rights, some come into being through court judgments while still others are common law. The evolvement of law takes place due to changing social mores, political thought, advances in technology and international covenants. If a right to privacy was not expressly written into the constitution, it was only because such sophisticated methods of keeping tabs on citizens were not present then. When the government was defending Sec. 66A of the I.T.Act in court, it has pleaded that new technology required new laws. Now it must similarly recognize that increasing interference in the lives of citizens and sophisticated gadgets available for the same means that the citizen also needs protection from any intrusion into his private world.

The government must be aware that rapid advances in technology â€" especially digital - mean that if it wants, it can keep an eye on each and every move of its citizens. This is not an acceptable situation in a democracy. Instead of denying the existence of a right to privacy and asking the court for clarification on the issue, the government should introduce an updated Right to Privacy bill (a bill was introduced in 2011 by Rajeev Chandrasekhar in the Rajya Sabha only to die a natural death and others were discussed in 2012, 2013 and 2014, without any seriousness) parliament to spell out the contours of how it wants to treat its citizens. It is upon our lawmakers to give us our private space. It is upon them to recognize the fact that without the right to privacy, the right to protection of life and personal liberty, as guaranteed under Article 21, is meaningless. It is upon them to rise above the narrow, constricted line of thought and show some vision in line with emerging thinking in progressive countries around the world.