The Supreme Court is on a roll. Just a couple of days after its wafer-thin majority but historic judgment on barring triple talaq, the apex court ruled on Thursday, August 24, that the right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution and unlike the one on triple talaq, this verdict given by a nine-judge bench was unanimous.
For a common citizen of this country like me, nothing would have been happier than the verdict which also overruled two earlier judgments. A smaller bench of the court will now decide the validity of sharing information for the Aadhaar card, something which the current Narendra Modi government has made a mandatory part of Indianness and as an aam Indian, I sincerely hope that the government's arguments backing Aadhaar as a compulsory document will be weakened after this verdict.
Why make the honest tax-payer stretch in the name of security?
Even though I am an honest tax-paying citizen, the government's decision to make me cover an extra mile by linking Aaadhar with all important documents and warning of deactivating them if it is not done betrays my sense of belongingness to this country. As the apex court has rightly observed, we Indians are already sharing information with Google and Apple and by making Aaadhar a must, the arrangements of making us vulnerable became all the more prominent.
It is not that the process of acquiring Aaadhar is foolproof and that makes us more apprehensive about linking it our other key private documents. Corruption is rampant when it comes to procuring an Aadhaar card and even agencies that are working genuinely to cater to the mammoth needs are feeling frustrated with the wide-scale duplicity which some unscrupulous hands are indulging in.
As a citizen, I am bound to abide by the State's rules but when it comes to safeguarding my privacy, I can't really surrender it all before the behemoth and thank the judiciary for coming to our aid. One sincerely believes that after the latest verdict by the Supreme Court upholding privacy as a fundamental one, the government will not consider further adventures to make intrusion into our personal space.
Not just Aadhaar, even ban on beef and alcohol, homosexuality will be questioned
And why just Aadhaar? The Supreme Court also ensures my right now to consume beef and alcohol as well as practise homosexuality. Even if I want to view porn as my private preference, there can't really be any government restriction on it. In one word, the safeguarding of privacy unshackles the idea of personal liberty (Article 21 of the Indian Constitution) in one stroke and that makes people like us glad.
