Justice K.S.Puttaswamy (Retired). vs Union of India And Ors.

,
2017.
The Apex court had upheld the validity of the Aadhaar (Targeted delivery of financial and
other subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016 in the judgement of K.S. Puttaswamy II,
decided in 2018.

The court deduced Aadhaar as a legitimate ‘reasonable restriction’ on the individual’s right to
privacy barring certain provisions like use of Aadhaar ecosystem by private corporations,
disclosure of personal information and cognisance offence. The Court held that the act
doesn’t violate Art 14, 15, 19 and 21 of fundamental rights.

The bench comprised of Justice Sikri's majority opinion (on behalf of Chief Justice Misra,
Justice Khanwilkar and himself), Justice Bhushan's concurring opinion and Justice
Chandrachud's dissenting opinion.

Story behind the Aadhaar Case

In 2011, Government of India initiated a new identity document called as Aadhaar card for
which established a new agency, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), to
issue the card. It is a twelve-digit unique identity number, which was intended by the
government to be the primary identification number for all legal residents of the country. For
the application of the card, a resident must submit the scan of their fingerprints and retina. All
the data are stored in a centralised data base.

Subsequently the government made Aadhaar mandatory for several welfare schemes such as
subsidised food under Public Distribution System, Mid-day meal scheme and Mahatma
Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme etc.That being said, this Aadhaar scheme was
challenged by retired judge of Karnataka High Court K.S. Puttaswamy before the SC.
Therefore, the primary question to be considered by the Apex Court was whether the
provisions of the Act were contrary to right to privacy which has been established as a
fundamental right sometime before. In this regard, it is important to note that number of
services provided by Government and private entities largely depended on individual linking
their aadhaar for authentication which indirectly made every individual to mandatorily obtain
Aadhaar number. Hence, the question was not so much that whether it was infringement but
whether it was a reasonable exception to it or not.

Brief facts:
A retired High Court Judge K.S. Puttaswamy filed a petition in 2012 against the Union of
India before a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of
Aadhaar because it is violating the right to privacy which had been established on reference
from the Constitution Bench to determine whether or not the right to privacy was guaranteed
as an independent fundamental right under the constitution of India following past decisions
from Supreme Court benches.
Issues:

1. Whether or not there is any fundamental right of privacy under the Constitution of India?

2. Whether or not the decision made by the Court that there are no such fundamental rights in
M.P. Sharma & Ors. vs. Satish Chandra, DM, Delhi & Ors. and also, in Kharak Singh vs. The
State of U.P, is that the correct expression of the constitutional position?