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When we are talking Constitutional Law, one of the first things that pop in our minds are the fundamental rights that are guaranteed to us by the constitution. While the right against caste based discrimination (Abolition of untouchability) and the right against exploitation are absolute in nature, as these cannot be taken away even in times of war/emergency, the others, such as the right to freedom and right to religion can be limited by imposition of reasonable restrictions.
RIGHT TO PRIVACY in the constitution?
While searching the word 'privacy' we found some constitutional debates and historical constitutions which discussed it. Constitutional debates are representative of the thought process of our constitution makers and the historical constitutions present a draft based on which our current constitution has been modelled. A right to privacy was something not been argued in great lengths in the debates. However, we were able to find certain mention of the word privacy in the debates, stating how privacy of correspondence shall be inviolable and may be infringed only in cases prescribed by law (Somnath Lahiri, CAD debates 30th April 1947).
Moreover in the 1944 draft of the Constitution by M.N. Roy, said that inviolability of homes and privacy of correspondence were protected by law. It was on 17 March 1947 that KM Munshi, member of the fundamental Rights sub- committee presented a draft article on fundamental rights to include a right to privacy. However, the same was not taken up in the first constitution. It was only recently in 2017, that right to privacy was held to be intrinsic to life and liberty and thus declared a fundamental right in the case of KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India.
So, though there was some discussion relating to privacy yet it was not the most significant of the issues for the Constituent Assembly members to include it in the text of the constitution. This definitely raises questions of how and why the Constitution makers were hesitant to include privacy as a FR despite it being present in the draft as proposed by Munshi.
When we are talking Constitutional Law, one of the first things that pop in our minds are the fundamental rights that are guaranteed to us by the constitution. While the right against caste based discrimination (Abolition of untouchability) and the right against exploitation are absolute in nature, as these cannot be taken away even in times of war/emergency, the others, such as the right to freedom and right to religion can be limited by imposition of reasonable restrictions.
RIGHT TO PRIVACY in the constitution?
While searching the word 'privacy' we found some constitutional debates and historical constitutions which discussed it. Constitutional debates are representative of the thought process of our constitution makers and the historical constitutions present a draft based on which our current constitution has been modelled. A right to privacy was something not been argued in great lengths in the debates. However, we were able to find certain mention of the word privacy in the debates, stating how privacy of correspondence shall be inviolable and may be infringed only in cases prescribed by law (Somnath Lahiri, CAD debates 30th April 1947).
Moreover in the 1944 draft of the Constitution by M.N. Roy, said that inviolability of homes and privacy of correspondence were protected by law. It was on 17 March 1947 that KM Munshi, member of the fundamental Rights sub- committee presented a draft article on fundamental rights to include a right to privacy. However, the same was not taken up in the first constitution. It was only recently in 2017, that right to privacy was held to be intrinsic to life and liberty and thus declared a fundamental right in the case of KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India.
So, though there was some discussion relating to privacy yet it was not the most significant of the issues for the Constituent Assembly members to include it in the text of the constitution. This definitely raises questions of how and why the Constitution makers were hesitant to include privacy as a FR despite it being present in the draft as proposed by Munshi.
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