Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INDEX
1. Listing Proforma
4. Annexure P-1-
6. Annexure P-3-
8. Annexure P-5
9. Annexure P-6
The Petitioner, having its registered office in Sector 15, Faridabad, Haryana and is an
approached this Hon'ble Court by way of the present Writ Petition under Article 32 of
the Constitution seeking a writ of declaration that the provisions of the Aadhaar Act are
in violation of Right to Privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India to the extent
to which it permits the government to have an access to all the confidential information
of the people, thereby infringing their privacy in entirety. The petitioner is aggrieved of
the basic provisions of this act, framed by the Parliament without having regard to
those people who do not have any involvement in the wrongful activities or without
considering the fact that not every individual is involved in illegal practices like money
laundering or corruption, so there is no point in keeping each and every person of this
The petitioner therefore, hereby, intends to state that there should be separate laws for
the people who are involved under such wrongful as well as illegal activities and that
just for the sake of keeping them and their activities under a constant surveillance, the
rest of the people should not be harassed by showing this weapon of Aadhaar.
LISTOFDATES
2006:March 3rd: Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications
two schemes -the National Population Register under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the
UID scheme.
2007: First meeting of the EgoM took place where the need for creating an identity
related resident database was recognized, thereby leading to the creation of Aadhaar.
2009: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was constituted for the
decided that the UIDAI will be executive in nature and function under the Planning
Authority.
2010: December 3rd: The National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 (NIAI Bill)
2010: December 10th:The NIAI Bill, 2010 was referred by the LokSabha Speaker to a
report on the NIAI Bill and rejected the bill in its initial form. It gave recommendations,
including the requirement for an overarching privacy legislation and data protection
law before the continuance of the scheme, and expressed concern about private agencies
petition (W.P.(C) 494/2012)before the Supreme Court contending that Aadhaar does not
have any statutory basis, and moreover violates fundamental rights of equality &
2013:Supreme Court in an interim order stated that no person should suffer for not
having an Aadhaar card, even if it has been made mandatory by certain authorities to
2014:An order is issued by the Supreme Court in the case of UIDAI v. Central Bureau
Puttaswamy’s petition) asking agencies to revoke any orders made by them making
Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits. Moreover, it also forbid the UIDAI from
sharing any information in the Aadhaar database with any agency without the data
2015: August: Three-judge bench of Supreme Court in an order restricted the use of
Aadhaar to schemes of LPG, and PDS, and held that no one would be denied the
benefits rightfully entitled to them for the lack of an Aadhaar card. It also refers the
2015: October: A five judge bench constituted for seeking clarifications on the August
order, reiterates that Aadhaar is not mandatory for availing any benefits, but in the
interim, expands the scope of the scheme to PDS, LPG, MNREGA, National Social
Organization. It further asks the CJI to expeditiously constitute a Bench for final hearing
2016: March 3rd: Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial & Other Subsidies, Benefits &
2016: March 11th: Aadhaar Bill, 2016 discussed and passed by the LokSabha with no
2016: March 16th: RajyaSabha sends the Bill back to LokSabha with its recommendations.
LokSabha does not consider the recommendations and passes the bill in its original
form.
2016: March 25th:President gives assent to the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, according it the status
of a law, but the Act will take a few months to come into force.
231/2016)in the Supreme Court challenging the introduction and passing of Aadhaar
2016: April 25th:The Supreme Court wishes to hear the Attorney General on 10 thMay,
2016: May 10th: With respect to Jairam Ramesh’s petition, the Attorney General argues
in the Supreme Court that decision of the LokSabha Speaker to treat a Bill as money bill
is not open for judicial review. However, the Supreme Court asks Jairam Ramesh to
submit a note of their submissions & case laws and adjourns the hearing till July.
2016: July 12th: Certain portions of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 (Sections 11-20, 22-23, 48-59)
and the UIDAI (Terms & Conditions of Chairperson and Members) Rules, 2016 notified
2016: September 12th: A set of notifications and regulations for the Aadhaar Act, 2016
Sections 1 to 10, and 24 to 47 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 notified in the Gazette by the
Central Government. With this, the entire Aadhaar Act, except Section 21 have now
been notified.
An order by the Central Government under Section 58 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016,
A set of five Regulationsfor various processes under the Aadhaar Act, namely:
Unique Identification Authority of India (Transaction of businesses at meetings
2016: October 21st: A fresh petition, S.G. Vombatkere&Anr. v. Union of India &Ors.
(W. P.(C) 797/2016),challenging Aadhaar Act and the Regulations notified therein listed
in the Supreme Court. However, as the Bench included Justice L.N. Rao, who had
Aadhaar, it was ordered that the matter be listed before a different Bench to eliminate
31st, 2017.
authentication to avail benefits under the Employees’ Pension Scheme, or enroll for
mentioned before CJI Khehar, and Justices N V Ramana, and D Y Chandrachud, and
and the collection of biometric data by private entities as well. The Supreme Court
refused to expedite the process and reportedlysaid, “We are not inclined to give
immediate hearing as there are limited resources but biometric data collection by
Ministries making Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of certain welfare schemes
and subsidies. A list of these notifications maintained by SFLC.in can be accessed here.
2017: March: Until March 27th, 2017, SFLC.in recorded a list of 20 more notifications by
the Central Government that made Aadhaar mandatory for receiving benefits of
2017: March 22nd: As a part of the Finance Bill, 2017 an amendment to the Income Tax
Act, 1961 was passed in the LokSabha. This amendment introduced Section 139AA that
made Aadhaar mandatory for filing of income tax returns, and for applying for a PAN
2017: April 26th: The Supreme Court heard the challenge of mandatory linking of
hearing for this case continued on April 27th and 28th, and May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION
v.
AND
Constitutional validity of Aadhaar card scheme by Government, order dated 14thAugust, 2015.
TO,
THE HON‟BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND HIS COMPANION JUSTICES OF THIS
HON‟BLE COURT THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE PETITIONER
ABOVENAMED
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH THAT:
(1) – That the present petition is filed in the Public Interest for considering the constitutional
validity to the Aadhaar card scheme of the union government and whether this scheme
violate the Right to Privacy of individual.
(2) – That in the present petition the petitioner will be assisted by Mr. GopalSubramanium,
Mr. KapilSibal, Mr. ArvindDatar, Mr. Shyam Divan, Mr. Anand Grover, Ms. Meenakshi
Arora, Mr. SajanPoovayya and Mr. JayantBhushan, learned senior counsel.
(3) That on order dated 11 August, 2015 the government of India had introduced the Aadhaar
card scheme as per which the Government of India will collect and compiles both
demographic and biometric data of the residence of this country, i.e. India to be used for
various purposes.
(4) That earlier this petition was before the three judge bench of this court but now a nine
judge bench of this court assembled to determine this question.
Question of Law –
(5) – That this petition raises several substantial questions of law of constitutional and public
importance as the concern the protection of fundamental rights, encompassing human
dignity, privacy andpersonhood, which may be summarized as follows:
B – Whether our Constitution Protects Privacy as an elemental principal and whether the
privacy is include under part III of the constitution as a Fundamental Right.
(7) That the existence of zones of privacy is felt instinctively by all civilized people, without
exception. The best evidence for this proposition lies in the panoply of activities through
which we all express claims to privacy in our daily lives. We lock our doors, clothe our
bodies and set passwords to our computers and phones to signal that we intend for our
places, persons and virtual lives to be private. An early case in the Supreme Court of
Georgia in the United States describes the natural and instinctive recognition of the need
for privacy in the following terms:
“The right of privacy has its foundation in the instincts of nature. It is recognized
intuitively, consciousness being the witness that can be called to establish its existence. Any
person whose intellect is in a normal condition recognizes at once that as to each individual
member of society there are matters private and there are matters public so far as the
individual is concerned. Each individual as instinctively resents any encroachment by the
public upon his rights which are of a private nature as he does the withdrawal of those of his
rights which are of a public nature”.
(8) That ‘Privacy’ is “the condition or state of being free from public attention to intrusion
into or interference with one's acts or decisions”. The right to be in this condition has
been described as ‘the right to be let alone’. What seems to be essential to privacy is the
power to seclude oneself and keep others from intruding it in any way. These intrusions
may be physical or visual, and may take any of several forms including peeping over
one's shoulder to eavesdropping directly or through instruments, devices or technological
aids.
(9) That every individual is entitled to perform his actions in private. In other words, one is
entitled to be in a state of repose and to work without being disturbed, or otherwise
observed or spied upon. The entitlement to such a condition is not confined only to
intimate spaces such as the bedroom or the washroom but goes with a person wherever he
is, even in a public place.
(10) That privacy, that is to say, the condition arrived at after excluding other persons, is a
basic pre-requisite for exercising the liberty and the freedom to perform that activity. The
inability to create a condition of selective seclusion virtually denies an individual the
freedom to exercise that particular liberty or freedom necessary to do that activity.
(11) That a Bench of three judges of this Court, while considering the constitutional challenge
to the Aadhaar card scheme of the Union government noted in its order, dated 11 August
2015, that the norms for and compilation of demographic biometric data by government was
questioned on the ground that it violates the right to privacy. That during the argument of
that case the Attorney General for India urged that the existence of a fundamental right of
privacy is in doubt in view of two decisions: the first - M P Sharma v. Satish Chandra,
District Magistrate, Delhi,
(12) That while addressing these challenges, the Bench of three judges of this Court took note
of several decisions of this Court in which the right to privacy has been held to be a
constitutionally protected fundamental right. Those decisions include Gobind v. State of
Madhya Pradesh, R Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, and People's Union for Civil
Liberties v. Union of India.
(13) That the question of whether Article 21 encompasses a fundamental right to privacy did
not fall for consideration before the 8 Judges in the M.P. Sharma Court. Rather, the question
was whether an improper search and seizure operation undertaken against a company and its
directors would violate the constitutional bar against testimonial compulsion contained in Article
20(3) of the Constitution. This Court held that such a search did not violate Article 20(3). Its
reasoning proceeded on the footing that the absence of a fundamental right to privacy analogous
to the Fourth Amendment to the United States’ constitution in our own constitution suggested
that the Constituent Assembly chose not to subject laws providing for search and seizure to
constitutional limitations.
(14) That M.P. Sharma is unconvincing not only because it arrived at its conclusion without
enquiry into whether a privacy right could exist in our Constitution on an independent footing or
not, but because it wrongly took the United States Fourth Amendment - which in itself is no
more than a limited protection against unlawful surveillance - to be a comprehensive
constitutional guarantee of privacy in that jurisdiction.
(15) That, nothing in M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh supports the conclusion that there is no
fundamental right to privacy in our Constitution. These two decisions and their inconclusiveness
on the question before the Court today have been discussed in great detail in the opinions of
Chelameswar J., Nariman J., and Chandrachud J., and they agree with their conclusion in this
regard. To the extent that stray observations taken out of their context may suggest otherwise, the
shift in our understanding of the nature and location of various fundamental rights in Part III
brought about by R.C. Cooper and Maneka Gandhi has removed the foundations of M.P.
Sharmaand Kharak Singh.
(16) That the judgments contained in M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh v. State of U.P.
which was by a Bench of 6 learned Judges, should be overruled as they do not reflect the
correct position in law. In any case, both judgments have been overtaken by R.C.
Cooper v. Union of India, (1970) 1 SCC 248, and Maneka Gandhi v. Union of
India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, and therefore require a revisit at our end.
(17) That the right to privacy is very much a fundamental right which is co-terminus
with the liberty and dignity of the individual. This right is found in Articles 14, 19, 20, 21
and 25 when read with the Preamble of the Constitution. Further, several international
covenants have stated that the right to privacy is fundamental to the development of the
human personality and that these international covenants need to be read into the
fundamental rights chapter of the Constitution. Also, the right to privacy should be
evolved on a case to case basis, and being a fundamental human right should only yield
to State action if such State action is compelling, necessary and in public interest. That
this Court also pronounce upon the fact that the right to privacy is an inalienable natural
right which is not conferred by the Constitution but only recognized as such.
(18) That the 8-Judge Bench and the 6-Judge Bench decisions have ceased to be
relevant in the context of the vastly changed circumstances of today. Further, State action
that violates the fundamental right to privacy must contain at least four elements, namely:
• The proposed action must be necessary in a democratic society for a legitimate aim;
• The extent of such interference must be proportionate to the need for such interference;
(19) That Right to Privacy is also associated with Right to Dignity under Article 21 of
the Constitution.
PRAYER
ANY OTHER RELIEF THAT THIS HON’BLE COURT MAY BE PLEASED TO GRANT IN
THE INTERESTS OF JUSTICE, EQUITY AND GOOD CONSCIENCE.
ALL OF WHICH IS RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED.
FOR THIS ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND FOREVER
Sd/-
(iv) Court fee of Rs.50/- per petitioner (In Crl. Matter no court fee is payable)
Petitioner-in-person may see a copy of WP (kept with AR-IB) to have practical knowledge
about drafting of petition.
********
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION
Jaswant Singh S/O Bhagwant Singh R/O Sector 15, Faridabad , Haryana
……………Petitioner
Versus
PAPER - BOOK
FILED BY
Filed on: