Former Karnataka High Court judge K.S. Puttaswamy, the lead petitioner in the right to privacy case challenging Aadhar, died on Monday. He was 98 years old.
Puttaswamy was appointed as Karnataka High Court judge in 1977 and he served in the role till 1986. Justice Puttaswamy enrolled as an advocate in 1952, Live Law reported. Post retirement, he served as vice chairperson of the Central Administrative Tribunal in Bengaluru.
In 2012, Puttaswamy petitioned with the Supreme Court questioning the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. In his petition, the former Karnataka HC judge questioned the government policy to make Aadhaar card mandatory for every individual and its plans to link the identity card with various government schemes. In his plea, Puttaswamy argued that Aadhaar violated the fundamental rights of equality and privacy granted to every individual under the Constitution.
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In a landmark judgment in 2017, a nine-member bench of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the right to privacy was a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. However, the bench refused to strike down the Aadhaar scheme. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud was part of the bench then.
