LEAKING A VIDEO OF AN OFFICER COUNTING BALLOT PAPERS DURING THE VOTING PROCESS OF CHANDIGARH MUNICIPALITY TO SOCIAL MEDIA IS IN BREACH OF DATA PRIVACY?
Data privacy is a law and it’s in force. It came into force on 11th August 2023. Recently an election process was held for electing a Mayor in Chandigarh Municipality. The issue started with Presiding Officer Anil Mansinh looking at surveillance camera and mainly ruling Aam Adami Party lost Mayoral post. Hence an issue is raised that returning officer defaced the ballot papers. The AAP approached the Supreme Court and upon seeing the video a judgment is drawn that returning officer Anil Mansinh tempered the ballot paper. There are two issues: The video presented in court is available on social media platform and all are interpreting the way they want. This is breach of #dataprivacy. How we will discuss here. Can court become judgmental by declaring returning officer guilty without scrutinizing the records? Is court pre-decisive and judgmental in this case? DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS: [A] The video presented in court is available on social media platform and all are interpreting the way they want. This is breach of #dataprivacy. While answering point No.i let us go back to recent history of constitution bench judgment in which current CJI was a part of it. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) & Anr. vs. Union of India & Ors. (2017), also known as the Right to Privacy verdict, is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of India, held that, the right to privacy is protected as a fundamental right under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. A nine-judge bench of J. S. Khehar, J. Chelameswar, S. A. Bobde, R. K. Agrawal, R. F. Nariman, A. M. Sapre, D. Y. Chandrachud, S. K. Kaul, and S. A. Nazeer unanimously held that “the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.” It explicitly overruled previous judgements of the Supreme Court in Kharak Singh vs. State of UP and M.P. Sharma vs. Union of India, which held that there is no fundamental right to privacy under the Indian Constitution. This judgment settled this position of law and clarified that the Right to Privacy could be infringed upon only when there was a compelling state interest in doing so. This position was the same as with the other fundamental rights . Supreme Court ruled that Right to Privacy is “intrinsic to life and personal liberty” and is inherently protected under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution. DATA PROTECTION: Central Government passed an Act to provide for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognises both the right of individuals to protect their personal data and the need to process such personal data for lawful purposes and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. The definition of the term data under this Act is as under : (h) “data” means a representation of information, facts, concepts, opinions or instructions in a manner suitable for communication, interpretation or processing by human beings or by […]
Read moreMAKING AND REPEAL OF LAWS A FAILED STRATEGY OR STRATEGY TO FAIL CONSTITUTION?
Today Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi in an address to the Nation has withdrawn three Farm Laws which were made after following due process of law as envisaged in Constitution of India. BRIEF HISTORY OF LAWS THAT WERE EITHER ABANDONED /WITHDRAWN OR STAYED BY A COURT OF LAW IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS. THE RIGHT TO FAIR COMPENSATION AND TRANSPARENCY IN LAND ACQUISITION, REHABILITATION AND RESETTLEMENT ACT, 2013 (also Land Acquisition Act, 2013) passed by the Indian Parliament that regulates the land acquisition and lays down the procedure and rules for granting compensation, rehabilitation, and resettlement to the affected persons in India. The Act has provisions to provide fair compensation to those whose land is taken away, brings transparency to the process of acquisition of land to set up factories or buildings, infrastructural projects, and assures rehabilitation of those affected. The Act establishes regulations for land acquisition as a part of India’s massive industrialization drive driven by a public-private partnership. The Act replaced the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, a nearly 120-year-old law enacted during British rule. HOW PASSED? The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 was introduced in Lok Sabha on 7 September 2011. The bill was then passed by Loksabha on 29 August 2013 and by Rajya Sabha on 4 September 2013. The bill then received the assent of the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on 27 September 2013. The Act came into force on 1 January 2014. In May 2014, the present Narendra Modi NDA government promulgated an Ordinance to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act, 2013, which was enacted during the previous UPA regime referred to hereinabove under the caption titled which came into effect from January 1, 2014. The new law replaced /repealed the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, which had been in force for over a century. On December 31, 2014, exactly one year after the new law had come into effect, the present NDA government sought to amend it by promulgating the RFCTLARR (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014. An amendment bill was introduced in Parliament to endorse and validate the Ordinance. Lok Sabha passed the bill but the same couldn’t be passed in Rajya Sabha as the present NDA government had no majority numbers to pass the said Bill. On 30 May 2015, the President of India promulgated the amendment ordinance for the third time HOW WAS IT EVENTUALLY WITHDRAWN? Considering continuing anger against the amendment, Prime Minister Modi announced the decision to withdraw the Ordinance in his Mann Ki Baat program broadcast on August 31, 2015, and the said Ordinance has lapsed. (Courtesy India Times) CCA- NRC THE CITIZENSHIP (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2019 The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a gateway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, or Christians, and arrived in India before the end of December 2014. The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims from these Muslim-majority countries. […]
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