Govt welcomes SC verdict on privacy

Welcoming the Supreme Court verdict holding privacy as a fundamental right, the government today said the right should be subject to "reasonable restrictions".
Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said much before the nine-judge bench was constituted in the apex court to decide on the issue of privacy, the Modi government had told Parliament that privacy is a fundamental right.
"We welcome the Supreme Court judgement that privacy should be a fundamental right... The government has been consistently of the view, particularly with regard to Aadhaar, that right to privacy should be a fundamental right and it should be subject to reasonable restrictions," he told a press conference convened to respond to the landmark apex court verdict.

Prasad also quoted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statement in Rajya Sabha in March last year where he said that privacy as a right is subject to restrictions.
The law and IT minister said even right to expression is fundamental. But no one is allowed to protest before Rashtrapati Bhawan without clothes. Even freedom of speech cannot cross the threshold set by the defamation law.
Responding to a series of questions on Aadhaar and the data linked to it, he said only a limited set of information is in public domain, the encrypted data, including biometrics is "completely safe and secure".

He claimed the previous UPA government had introduced Aadhaar scheme without any legislative support.

"It was in that context that the question of the UPA's Aadhaar scheme was challenged before the judiciary. The NDA government ensured that necessary legislation was approved by Parliament. Adequate safeguards were also introduced," a statement issued by the law ministry later said.
Prasad skirted questions on reference to sexual orientation of people, need to maintain secrecy and the proposed surrogacy law which bars same sex parents and trans- genders from going for surrogacy. He said the issues could be discussed later as the focus today was Aadhaar.

Asked why the then Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had told the apex court that citizens don't have absolute right on their body if the government believes that right to privacy is a fundamental right, Prasad said the government and the court are on the same page on the issue.
What the A-G said was part of courtroom banter which has not been reflected in the judgement.