The Supreme Court wants an authoritative pronouncement as to whether
right to privacy is a fundamental right. The SC has now referred to a larger constitutional bench a batch of petitions challenging the govt's ambitious Aadhaar project.


This comes after the Centre on Wednesday reiterated its stand that privacy was not a fundamental right, while contesting a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar scheme on the ground of violation of citizens' right to privacy.


Addressing the court for referring the matter to a constitution bench in the context whether privacy was part of the right to liberty and thus a fundamental right, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the apex court bench of Justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde and C. Nagappan that one could not telescope privacy in any of the fundamental rights.