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It was submitted on behalf of the petitioner that right to privacy is itself a fundamental right and that that right is violated as regulation 856 provides for domiciliary visits and other incursions into it. The question whether right to privacy is itself a fundamental right 'lowing from the other fundamental rights guaranteed to a citizen under Part III is not easy of solution.

In Griswold v. Connecticut(1), a Connecticut statute made the use of contraceptives a criminal offence. The executive and medical directors of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut were convicted in the Circuit Court on a charge of having violated the statute as accessories by giving information, instruction and advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. The appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed and its judgment was 'affirmed by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut. On appeal the (1) 381 U. S. 479, 510.

In his dissenting opinion, Mr. Justice Black berated the majority for discovering and applying a constitutional right to privacy. His reading of the Constitution failed to uncover any provision or provisions forbidding the passage of any law that might abridge the 'privacy' of individuals. In Jane Roe v. Henry Wade("), an unmarried pregnant woman who wished to terminate her pregnancy by abortion instituted an action in the United State strict Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes, which prohibited abortions except with respect to those procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court said that although the Constitution of the U.S.A. does not explicitly mention any right of privacy, the United States Supreme Court recognizes that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution, and "that the roots of that right may be found in the First Amendment, in the Fourth and Fif, Amendments. in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, in the ninth Amendment, and in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment" and that the "right to privacy is not absolute", The usual starting point in any discussion of the growth of legal concept of privacy, though not necessarily the correct one, is the famous article,"The Right to Privacy" by Charles Warren and Louis D. Brandeis (2).What was truly creative in the article was their insistence thatprivacy,- the right to be let alone-was an interest that man should be able to assert directly and not derivatively from his efforts to protect other interests. To Protect man's "inviolate Personality" against the intrusive behaviour so increasingly evident (1) 410 U. S. 113.

"The liberal individualist tradition has stressed, in particular, three personal ideals, to each of which corresponds a range of 'private affairs'. The first is the ideal of personal relations; the second, the Lockean ideal of the politically free man in a minimally regulated society; the third, the Kantian ideal of the morally autonomous man, acting on principles that he accepts as rational"(8).

There can be no doubt that privacy-dignity claims deserve to be examined with care and to be denied only when an important countervailing interest is shown to be superior. If the Court does find that aclaimed right is entitled to protection as a fundamental privacy right,a law infringing it must satisfy the compelling state interest test. Then the question would be whether a state interest is of such paramount importance as would justify an infringement of the right. Obviously, if the enforcement of morality were held to be a compelling as well as a permissible state interest, the characterization of a claimed rights as a fundamental privacy right would be of far less significance. The question whether enforcement of morality is a interest- sufficient to justify the infringement of a fundamental right need not be considered for the purpose of this case and therefore we refuse to enter the controversial thicket whether enforcement of morality is a function of state. Individual autonomy, perhaps the central concern of any system of limited government, is protected in part under our Constitution by (1) see "privacy and the Law: A philosophical prelude" by Milton R. Konvitz in 31 Law & Contemporary Problems (1966) p. 272, 273.

Having reached this conclusion, we are satisfied that drastic inroads directly into the privacy and indirectly into the fundamental. rights, of a citizen will be made if Regulations 855 and 856 were to be read widely. To interpret the rule 'm harmony with the Constitution is therefore necessary and canalisation of the powers vested in the police by the two Regulations earlier read becomes necessary, if they are to be saved at all. Our founding fathers were thoroughly opposed to a Police Rajeven as our history of the struggle for freedom has borne eloquent testimony to it. The relevant Articles of the Constitution we have adverted to earlier, behave us therefore to narrow down the scope for play of the two Regulations. We proceed to give direction and restriction to the application of the said regulations with the caveat that if any action were taken beyond the boundaries so set, the citizen will be, entitled to attack such action as-unconstitutional and void. Depending on the character and antecedents,of the person subjected to surveillance as also the objects and the limitation under which surveillance is made, it cannot be said surveillance by domiciliary visits. would always be unreasonable restriction upon the right of privacy. Assuming that the fundamental rights explicitly guaranteed to a citi- zen have penumbral zones and that the right to privacy is itself a fundamental right, that fundamental right must be subject to restriction on the basis of compelling public interest As regulation 856 has the force of law, it cannot be said that the fundamental right of, the petitioner under Article 21 has been violated by the provisions contained in it for, what is guaranteed under' that Article is that no person shall he deprived of his life or personal liberty except by the (1) see "Privacy- Human Rights", ed. A. H. Robertson p.