By Pranav Agarwal
Right to Privacy
Right to privacy has been talked about by great philosophers like Aristotle where they drew a discretion among the acts of a person in the public and private space respectively. The term “Right to Privacy” was coined by Warren and Brandeis[1] in their paper titled ‘right to privacy’ in 1890s when the print media just came on track and the use of cameras were started. They thought publication of pictures can hurt the right to privacy of the citizens
Evolution of right to privacy in India
Right to privacy finds its roots from the R M Malkani v State of Maharashtra[2] in which the phone of the plaintiff was being tapped, the court said that it will protect the telephonic conversations of the innocent people but this protection will not be provided, to the person found guilty of the offence. Though this was a precise judgement only dealing with the phone tapping thing it initiated the talks on the Right to privacy in India.
Then in 2017 a full-fledged judgement was given by the Hon’ble supreme court on the right to privacy. In the case of Justice K. S. Puttaswamy. vs Union of India[3] by a nine-judge constitutional bench. This case came up as a writ after in the Aadhar case the attorney general stated that there was no clarity about Right to privacy being a fundamental right the attorney general cited the Kharak Singh case[4] and the M.P. Singh case[5]. To check the validity of these cases the three-judge bench referred it to a nine-judge constitutional bench. The bench over ruling both of these cases said that right to privacy is a fundamental right and comes under the Article 21 that is right to life and personal liberty.
Anti CAA protests- A brief overview of the situation
In 2019, just after the introduction of Citizenship Amendment Bill there were a lot of protests going on in the whole. Many of them even turned violent and lead to a mass destruction of public property.[6]
Amid of all this the Uttar Pradesh government came up with a solution which they thought was a suitable method to curb these protests. After the violent protests in Lucknow on 19 December 2019 some of the people were video graphed and many of them were sent a notice that if they do not pay compensation for the loss suffered by the public their property would be taken away by the government. The protesters had filed an appeal against the notice which they received. On 6th March 2020 the district administration and the police administration of Lucknow city decided to hang the posters of around 60 protesters with their image, name, address and some other personal details on the main signals of Lucknow city. The poster basically said that these people were liable for the loss of public property in the protests that took place on 19 December 2019 and they ow a lump sum amount to the government for the loss caused to the public property.[7]
Suo moto cognizance by Allahabad High Court
The High court of Allahabad took the Suo moto cognizance of this matter on 8 march 2020 the bench of two judges headed by Hon’ble Chief Justice of the state Govind Mathur and Justice Ramesh Sinha and called upon the District Magistrate and the Commissioner of police of Lucknow city they were represented by the Advocate General of the State.
Advocate general contended that the PIL can not sustain on the following grounds:
- The court does not have territorial jurisdiction as the erection of banners took place in Lucknow and not Allahabad.
- The court should take this PIL as the people who are on the poster do not belong to the marginalized section of the society. They are capable to raise their own complaint.
- The people whose posters are erected are wrongdoers and the court should not interfere when such good initiative is by taken the state.
- This case should be taken by a divisional bench and not a single bench as it is a PIL.
The High court of Allahabad giving its judgement said that
- It has the territorial jurisdiction as the main cause of action in not the personal injury which the people will face but the injury to the constitutional rights caused by this “shameless” act of the administration. Also, administration of various other parts of the state like Meerut were allegedly planning to the same thus there can be no question on the territorial jurisdiction.
- The court talked about the separation of power and said that when there is a gross violation of fundamental right being done by any of the two organs judiciary has the power to stop them from doing so. In this case the fundamental right was violated which is not acceptable and the court can take Suo moto cognizance.
- The court said that it is good that the state wants to punish the wrong doer and curb crime in the state but it has no right to violate any fundamental right of the citizens.
Hon’ble bench also said that there in no such provision in Criminal procedure code which can give permission to the police to publish images of the accused. At most they can only take a picture of the accused.
Then the High court of Allahabad checked the legitimacy of the poster for this it performed the following tests:
- Necessity of the society: Whether it was a necessity of the society to know them. The High Court said it found nothing which made it necessary for the people of the state to know these people.
- Legitimate Aim: According to the High Court there was no legitimate aim behind the erection of such posters.
- The object that the government wants to reach and the means applied for it should be proportionate: In this case the object was to stop people from doing illegal activity the HC said that in this case why only the poster of 60 odd protestors were there when lakhs of people in Uttar Pradesh were accused for the riots.
The court finally ordered that all these posters should be removed as soon as possible.[8]
[1] Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Privacy_(article) July 3 2021
[2] R M Malkani v State of Maharashtra (1973) 1 SCC 471
[3] Justice K. S. Puttaswamy. vs Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1
[4] Kharak Singh v, State of U.P. & others 1964 SCR (1) 332
[5] MP Sharma v. Sathish Chandra (1954) SCR 1077
[6] India Today https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/lucknow-news-citizenship-amendment-act-protest-stone-pelting-tear-gas-1629687-2019-12-19 July 3 2021
[7] The Wire https://thewire.in/law/allahabad-hc-takes-cognisance-of-hoardings-with-names-photos-of-anti-caa-protesters July 3 2021
[8] In-Re Banners Placed on Road Side in The City of Lucknow v. State of U.P., PIL No. 532 of 2020 (Allahabad High Court, March 9 2020)
