UPSC Mains 2017 GS Paper 2 Q12: model answer
Examine the scope of Fundamental Rights in the light of the latest judgement of the Supreme Court on Right to Privacy.
What the question wants
Examine how the 2017 privacy judgment changed the scope of Fundamental Rights.
How to structure it
Examine the scope ... in the light of: what Puttaswamy held, then what it changed for rights, with later cases.
- The judgment
- What it held
- Effect on the scope of rights
- Later applications
- Limits
How to think it through
Before 2017, two old benches (M.P. Sharma 1954, Kharak Singh 1962) had said privacy wasn't a fundamental right. Nine judges overruled them. It's a rare case where the Court corrected its own history in one sitting, and its reasoning travels well beyond privacy.
Model answer
On 24 August 2017, a nine-judge bench in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India unanimously declared privacy a Fundamental Right, overruling M.P. Sharma (1954) and Kharak Singh (1962) on this point.
What the Court held
- Privacy is intrinsic to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and also flows from the freedoms in Part III.
- It covers bodily autonomy, informational privacy and decisional autonomy (choices on family, sexuality, food).
- It is not absolute. Restrictions must pass a three-fold test: legality (a law), legitimate aim, and proportionality.
- The state must create a data protection regime.
How it widened the scope of Fundamental Rights
- Rights as a connected whole: following Maneka Gandhi and R.C. Cooper, rights in
Articles 14, 19 and 21 overlap and must be read together.
- Dignity at the centre: rights protect the individual's dignity, not only freedom from state action.
- Proportionality became the standard test for any restriction.
- Rights are not frozen: they evolve with technology and society, reflecting a living Constitution.
- Minority choices matter: the judgment criticised Suresh Koushal (2013) on Section 377.
Later applications
- Navtej Singh Johar (2018): decriminalised consensual same-sex relations.
- Joseph Shine (2018): struck down adultery as a crime.
- Puttaswamy (Aadhaar), 2018: upheld Aadhaar for welfare but struck down its mandatory use by private firms (Section 57).
- Common Cause (2018): right to die with dignity, living wills.
- Anuradha Bhasin (2020): proportionality for internet shutdowns.
- Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
Limits
Surveillance laws, broad state exemptions in the 2023 Act, and Pegasus allegations show gaps between the principle and practice.
Conclusion
Puttaswamy turned Fundamental Rights from a list into a philosophy of dignity and autonomy, which keeps the Constitution relevant in a digital age.
Draw: Three circles: bodily, informational, decisional privacy around Article 21.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
Puttaswamy 2017, nine-judge bench, M.P. Sharma, Kharak Singh, three-fold test, proportionality, informational privacy, DPDP Act 2023.
Where most answers lose marks
- Describing only privacy and not the wider 'scope of Fundamental Rights'.
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Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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