The CCG Privacy High Court Tracker is a resource consisting of decisions on the constitutional right to privacy passed by all High Courts in India. The Privacy High Court Tracker captures cases post the pronouncement of the Justice (Retd.) K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India (Puttaswamy) judgment. In Puttaswamy, the Supreme Court of India reaffirmed the existence of the right to privacy in India’s Constitution as a fundamental right.
The Privacy High Court Tracker is a tool to enable lawyers, judges, policymakers, legislators, civil society organisations, academic and policy researchers and other relevant stakeholders, to engage with, understand and analyse the evolving privacy law and jurisprudence across India. The cases deal with the following aspects of privacy (1) autonomy, (2) bodily integrity, (3) data protection, (4) dignity, (5) informational privacy, (6) phone tapping, (7) press freedom, (8) right to know and access information, and (9) surveillance, search and seizure.
The tracker currently only consists of cases reported on Manupatra, and those reported upto 15 March 2024 (CCG will continue to update the tracker periodically). Only final judgements are included in the tracker, and not interim orders of the High Courts.
Show methodologyInformational Privacy || Tripura High Court
2 Judge
Decision Date - 16.03.2022
Citation - MANU/TR/0156/2022
Case Type - Writ Petition (Civil) (PIL)
Case Status - Disposed
Legal Provisions - Article 14, 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950. S. 11 of the Right To Information Act, 2005. S. 39 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972
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"Where a statute confers a right; which in the instant case is the right of a third party to refuse furnishing of private or confidential information, same cannot be wiped out in a manner except as set out in that statute. In order to outweigh the privacy/confidentiality of a third party; presumptions and baseless allegations alone are not sufficient, and the seeker of information must set out compelling grounds and circumstances rooted in facts to warrant infringement of privacy/confidentiality. Provisions of RTI cannot be read down to make privacy of individuals amenable to fishing inquiry and a fine balance is required to be maintained between public-interest and privacy/confidentiality of private party."
Read moreThe Central/State Public Information Officer cannot disclose information considered confidential by a third party without their consent.
Read moreMethodology
The Privacy High Court Tracker has been developed using judgements pulled from the Manupatra case law database. Through its search function, CCG identified cases that relied upon the Puttaswamy judgment and were pertaining to the right to privacy, and filtered them by each of the 25 High Courts in India. These were then further examined to identify those cases whose decisions concerned a core aspect of privacy. CCG identified the following aspects of privacy (1) autonomy, (2) bodily integrity, (3) data protection, (4) dignity, (5) informational privacy, (6) phone tapping, (7) press freedom, (8) right to know and access information, and (9) surveillance, search and seizure. Cases where only incidental or passing observations or references were made to Puttaswamy and the right to privacy were not included in the tracker. The selected cases were then compiled into the database per High Court, with several details highlighted for ease of reference. These details consist of case name, decision date, case citation and number, case status, legal provisions involved, and bench strength. The tracker also includes select quotes concerning the right to privacy from each case, to assist users to more easily and quickly grasp the crux of the case.
For ease of access to the text of the judgments, each case on our tracker is linked to the Indian Kanoon version of the judgment (wherever available) or an alternative open-access version of the judgment text.
We welcome your feedback. In addition, you may write to us at - ccg@nludelhi.ac.in with the details of any privacy case we may not have included from any High Court in India.
