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+====== Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017) ======
+{{htmlmetatags>metatag-keywords=(K S Puttaswamy privacy judgment, right to privacy India, Puttaswamy RTI implications, fundamental right to privacy Supreme Court, Article 21 privacy, rti right to information india)
+metatag-description=(Nine-judge Constitution Bench judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1 recognising privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 — and its implications for Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.)}}
+{{page>snippets:dpdp-banner}}
+<WRAP center round didyouknow 95%>
+**Did you know?** //Puttaswamy// runs to nearly 550 pages across six concurring opinions — the longest Constitution Bench output in recent Supreme Court history. Every opinion agreed that privacy is a fundamental right. The divergences were on how to balance it against other State interests.
+</WRAP>
+<WRAP center round info 95%>
+**In one line.** A nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that the **right to privacy is a fundamental right** protected by Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
+**What that means in practice for RTI.**
+  * Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act gains a **constitutional shield** — the personal-information exemption is not mere statutory creation but reflects a constitutional right.
+  * Balancing privacy against transparency is now a **proportionality test**, not a mechanical checklist.
+  * The 14 November 2025 substitution of Section 8(1)(j) by the DPDP Rules, 2025 draws directly on //Puttaswamy// reasoning.
+</WRAP>
+===== Citation =====
+//Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India and Ors.//, (2017) 10 SCC 1.\\
+**Bench:** Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, Justice J. Chelameswar, Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice R.K. Agrawal, Justice R.F. Nariman, Justice A.M. Sapre, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice S.K. Kaul, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.\\
+**Date of judgment:** 24 August 2017.
+===== The reference =====
+A nine-judge Bench was constituted to resolve a question that had hovered over Indian constitutional law for decades: **is there a fundamental right to privacy?** Earlier Benches had given conflicting answers. //M.P. Sharma// (1954) and //Kharak Singh// (1963) suggested there was no such right. Later cases — //Gobind v. State of M.P.// (1975), //R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu// (1994), //PUCL v. Union of India// (1997) — implied there was.
+The immediate trigger was the challenge to the **Aadhaar scheme**. But the reference question was broader: does the Constitution recognise a fundamental right to privacy at all?
+===== What the Court held =====
+==== Unanimously ====
+All nine judges agreed that **privacy is a fundamental right** inhering in Part III of the Constitution — principally Article 21 (life and personal liberty), but also traceable to Articles 14 (equality) and 19 (freedoms). //M.P. Sharma// and //Kharak Singh//, to the extent they held otherwise, were overruled.
+==== The three-part test ====
+The Court laid down a **proportionality test** for any State action that infringes privacy:
+  - **Legality** — the action must be backed by a valid law.
+  - **Legitimate aim** — the State must pursue a goal that justifies the infringement.
+  - **Proportionality** — the means adopted must be rationally connected to the aim and must be the **least restrictive alternative**.
+==== Informational privacy ====
+Several opinions specifically identified **informational privacy** — a person's right to control the collection, use, and dissemination of personal information — as a distinct facet of the broader right. This facet directly frames the Section 8(1)(j) balancing in the RTI Act.
+===== Implications for the RTI Act =====
+  * **Section 8(1)(j) is now read with constitutional weight.** Denial on privacy grounds has a stronger foundation than before.
+  * **Section 8(2) public-interest override is constrained.** The override must pass the //Puttaswamy// proportionality test — a significant public interest, proportionate to the privacy harm.
+  * **14 November 2025 DPDP amendment.** The substituted text of Section 8(1)(j) aligns the RTI exemption with the DPDP Act, 2023 definitions — which themselves were drafted with //Puttaswamy// in mind. See [[blog:dpdp-rules-2025-amendment-to-rti-act|DPDP Rules, 2025: the amendment]] and [[blog:pio-reply-section-8-1-j-after-dpdp-2025|PIO reply after DPDP Rules, 2025]].
+===== Tension with the transparency line of cases =====
+//Puttaswamy// sits uneasily beside the transparency jurisprudence of //CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay// (2011), //Girish Ramchandra Deshpande// (2013), and //CPIO SC v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal// (2020). The resolution is case-specific: each disclosure must be tested against the three-part proportionality framework. Routine service-record disclosures (designation, pay scale, postings) easily clear the test; disclosures of medical records, private financial data, or intimate relationships of private persons do not.
+===== Related on this site =====
+  * [[:act|The RTI Act, 2005 — current text]]. Section 8(1)(j).
+  * [[explanations:privacy|Privacy under RTI]].
+  * [[explanations:privacy-public-servants|Privacy of public servants]].
+  * [[explanations:public-interest|Public interest]].
+  * [[blog:dpdp-rules-2025-amendment-to-rti-act|DPDP Rules, 2025 — the amendment]].
+  * [[important-decisions:court:girish-ramchandra-deshpande|Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (2013)]] — ACRs and property returns.
+  * [[important-decisions:start|Case law library]].
+===== Sources =====
+  - //Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India and Ors.//, (2017) 10 SCC 1.
+  - Constitution of India, Articles 14, 19, 21.
+  - The Right to Information Act, 2005, Sections 8(1)(j) and 8(2).
+  - The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, Section 44(3).
+===== Last reviewed on =====
+April 2026
+{{tag>rti case-law supreme-court constitution-bench privacy article-21 puttaswamy 2017}}

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