The Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) elevated the Right to Privacy to a fundamental right intrinsic to Article 21, reshaping India's constitutional and regulatory landscape.
The nine-judge bench located privacy within Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty), while also drawing on Articles 14 and 19. This tripartite grounding means any state intrusion must satisfy the tests of legality, legitimate aim, and proportionality.
The judgment expressly overruled M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh, which had denied privacy constitutional status. This corrective step aligned India's jurisprudence with international human rights norms and democratic constitutionalism.
The ruling catalysed the enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, establishing a statutory framework for data fiduciaries, consent mechanisms, and a Data Protection Board. Effective implementation remains a work in progress, particularly regarding state surveillance exemptions.
Balancing privacy against legitimate state interests — national security, welfare delivery through Aadhaar-linked systems, and law enforcement — requires robust institutional safeguards. Judicial oversight, independent regulatory bodies, and clear proportionality standards are essential to prevent executive overreach.
Privacy as a fundamental right demands not merely judicial recognition but institutional architecture that operationalises proportionality. India's data governance framework must evolve to make this right substantive rather than aspirational.
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