Tug-of-war between the ‘fundamental’ and ‘non-absoluteness’ notions of the Right to Privacy

Abstract

According to Black’s Law Dictionary privacy is “right to be let alone; the right of a person to be free from any unwarranted publicity; the right to live without any unwarranted interference by the public in matters with which the public is not necessarily concerned. With change in time and technological advancements the potential threat to a person’s privacy has increased by manifold. The everyday instances of misuse of an individual’s private data was the main reason that raised the question whether privacy is a fundamental right in the Indian jurisprudence. The privacy advocates extend the claims that right to privacy is a natural right and natural rights are not bestowed by the State and they inhere in human beings because they are human. It was in this regard, that today even Indian judiciary has elevated the concept of privacy to a dignity based privacy as held in Gobind case , in contrast to property-based privacy. Thus, dignity based privacy adds substance to the notion of human life being more than mere animal existence.