Thursday's submissions are in stark contrast to those made by Attorney General KK Venugopal on Wednesday when he conceded that Right to Privacy was fundamental though wholly qualified.
Continuing its flip-flop on the issue of privacy, the Centre firmed up its stand on privacy and submitted that its not a fundamental right.
Thursday's submissions are in stark contrast to those made by Attorney General KK Venugopal on Wednesday when he conceded that Right to Privacy was fundamental though wholly qualified.
"There is no fundamental right to privacy, and even if it is assumed as a fundamental right it is multifaceted. Every facet can't be ipso facto considered a fundamental right," Venugopal submitted before a nine-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar.
The top law officer continued presenting the government's case against the backdrop of petitions challenging the mandatory use of Aadhaar as an infringement of privacy. Critics say the Aadhaar identity card links enough data to create a comprehensive profile of citizens and the data — containing fingerprints, iris scans, and demographic information — can be misused.
"'Informational privacy' could not be a right to privacy, and it could not ever be a fundamental right," Venugopal said before a bench comprising Justices J Chelameswar, SA Bobde, RK Agrawal, Rohinton Fali Nariman, Abhay Manohar Sapre, DY Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and S Abdul Nazeer.
Maharashtra entered the ring on Thursday with Senior Advocate Aryama Sundaram representing it. "Concept of privacy is all encompassing. To have it as a fundamental right would amount to injecting an expression with ambiguity and vagueness into the Constitution, something which was expressly rejected by Constituent Assembly," Sundaram said.
Sundaram spoke about the status of free speech in China and United Arab Emirates (UAE) — "their sovereign does not allow it" — and likened it to privacy in India by claiming that our "Magna Carta — the Indian Constitution" does not permit the same.
Earlier on Wednesday, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal represented three non-BJP ruled states and came out in support of the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right.
Earlier on Wednesday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing three non-BJP states Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka and Union Territory Puducherry, came out in support for the pro-privacy parties. The right to privacy was not an absolute right, but a fundamental one and the court needed to strike a balance, he had submitted.
Aadhaar was started seven years ago to streamline payment of benefits and cut down on massive wastage and fraud. About 95.10 per cent of India's population has voluntarily registered for the 12-digit identification number. The Centre has extended its Aadhaar enrolment deadline from June 30 to September 30.
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