Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held on 24 August 2017 that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected under Article 21 (and as part of the freedoms guaranteed under Part III generally) of the Constitution. The judgment overruled earlier decisions (M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh) that had held there was no fundamental right to privacy. The Court held that any state action infringing privacy must satisfy a three-fold test: legality (existence of a law), legitimate state aim, and proportionality (the means must be proportionate to the objective, with the least restrictive alternative preferred).