In a precedent-setting judgment with a direct bearing on the right to privacy of Indian citizens, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday dismissed a petition by a former Haryana director-general of police seeking directions to the Registrar General Census Operations to make public the “religion and faith” professed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her children.
Ruling that the information sought was a wholly personal and private matter of the individuals concerned, Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Ranjan Gogoi observed, “it is evident that the petitioner is making efforts to make unjustified inroads into the privacy of the individuals even if they are public figures.”
Former DGP P.C. Wadhwa had petitioned the court following the Central Information Commissioner’s refusal to direct the census operations CPIO to provide him with details, under the Right to Information Act, of the religion followed by Mrs Gandhi, her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and son Rahul Gandhi, who is a general secretary of the All-India Congress Committee.
The retired police officer, who lives in Chandigarh, had sought details pertaining to the religion and faith mentioned by the Gandhis in the last (2001) Census. In an appeal filed to the CIC he contended that Mrs Gandhi, the late Rajiv Gandhi and other members of the Gandhi family were public figures who had portrayed a certain public image regarding their religious belief and faith that was contradicted by news reports.
Mr Wadhwa later sought a review of the CIC’s order rejecting his appeal on the premise that the “publicly displayed faith was divergent from the reality of their (the Gandhi family’s) faith”.
But in a final order around March 2008, the CIC turned down Mr Wadhwa’s request for a review concluding that an individual’s private and personal affairs cannot be made public under the RTI Act. The commission held that “the sanctity of the private domain must be kept inviolate at all times”.
Concurring with the Central Information Commission’s orders that any disclosures about the religion and faith of public persons would tantamount to an unacceptable invasion of their right to privacy, the high court also observed: “India being a socialist, democratic and secular republic, the quest to obtain the information about the religion professed or not professed by a citizen cannot in any event be considered to be in public interest.”