How wide should the ambit of the right to privacy, deemed as a fundamental right in India, be? This is the question that arises after a recent judgment by the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In a petition filed by a woman challenging a family court order that allowed her estranged husband to exhibit illegally procured private chats as evidence in an ongoing divorce case, the high court upheld the family court’s decision, ruling that in a conflict between two rights guaranteed under Article 21 — the right to privacy and the right to a fair trial — the latter must prevail if justice is at stake. The tension between these two legal stipulations would appear instructive on the perusal of their specific histories and intent. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which India is a signatory to, describes a fair trial as a trial without bias or prejudice before an impartial authority. On the other hand, the Supreme Court has defined the right to privacy as protecting for an individual a zone of self-determination. In India, both rights stem from Article 21, which is aimed at protecting life and liberty of individuals. On paper, the two rights should thus not be at odds. But conflicts between the two have risen frequently — in almost all cases, these pertain to the admissibility of evidence — since the passing of the landmark judgment on the right to privacy. A look at cases from across the country reveals that high courts in Delhi, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana have settled such disputes by dwelling on how the evidence in question was procured. In case of evidence gathered by infringing on the privacy of an individual without explicit consent — illegally procured chats, secret recordings and so on — the courts have given preference to the right to privacy.
However, in each of these cases, the courts also observed that the right to privacy, too, is subject to limitations. Pertinently, the apex court has, in the past, held that relevant evidence — regardless of how it is obtained — may be admissible if it serves the cause of justice. Such observations could give primacy to the right to a fair trial when protecting the right to privacy leads to a perversion of justice. But procedural safeguards must be put in place to prevent misuse of such a provision — the 94th Law Commission has spoken about the need to discourage adopting illegal means to procure evidence. The question, then, rests on a fine balance. Upholding privacy must not come at the cost of the truth, and a fair trial cannot impinge on a person’s dignity protected by the right to privacy. The law must serve both ends.