Father and son on opposite sides

A nine-member bench of SC unanimously ruled that privacy is a fundamental right of every citizen

A nine-member bench of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that privacy is a fundamental right of every citizen. Among them was Justice D Y Chandrachud, who wrote a separate judgment on behalf of himself and three other judges and overruled a past judgment by his father, Justice Y V Chandrachud, during the Emergency years of 1975 to 1977, calling it “seriously flawed”. Chandrachud junior said that “neither life nor liberty are bounties conferred by the state nor does the Constitution create these rights”. Fundamental rights were suspended during the Emergency and a five-judge Supreme Court bench that included Chandrachud senior had backed it in the 1976 case known as “ADM Jabalpur”.