Centre adopting double standard on right to privacy matter: Congress

A day after Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed that the Centre backed privacy as fundamental right; the Congress party on Friday alleged Narendra Modi government was adopting double standard on the issue of right to privacy.

The Supreme Court of Thursday ruled that Right to Privacy was a fundamental right.

Speaking to ANI, Congress leader Kapil Sibbal said that it was unfortunate that the Law Minister had said something which is completely contrary to what was argued in the apex court by their representative Attorney General of India.

"The Attorney General said that there was no need to elevate right to privacy to the fundamental right. The judgment of the Supreme Court also reflects this fact that he opposed the elevation of the right to privacy as a fundamental right. In fact, they said that this is an elitist right," Sibbal added.

Congress leader KTS Tulsi also slammed the Centre for contradictory stance and said the central government was never in favour of making privacy a fundamental right.

"It was not Centre's stand to make privacy a fundamental right. They wanted to peep into privacy of public. They wanted to overpower their privacy," he told ANI.

Earlier on Thursday, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad pitched the Supreme Court's verdict that privacy is a fundamental right as a reaffirmation of the government's position.

He also brushed aside allegations that the government was opposed to privacy being made a fundamental right.

His statement came after the nine-judge Constitution bench of the apex court overruled the judgements in M.P. Sharma (1962) and Kharak Singh (1954) cases and gave the verdict that privacy was a fundamental right of a citizen.