Question

Assertion (A): The right to privacy has been judicially recognised as an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Reason (R): Privacy is expressly enumerated as a separate Fundamental Right in Part III of the Constitution of India. In the context of the Constitution of India and the decision in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), which one of the following is correct?

• A. (A) is false, but (R) is true.
• B. Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).
• C. Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
• D. (A) is true, but (R) is false.

Hint:

Do not confuse a right being Fundamental with being expressly written. Privacy is a Fundamental Right because the Supreme Court interpreted it from Articles 14, 19 and 21.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

To resolve this Assertion-Reason pair, it is enough to check two separate things: whether the Supreme Court actually treated privacy as folded into Article 21, and whether the constitutional text itself contains a separately titled privacy right.

1. Checking the Assertion: In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge bench held unanimously that privacy is a facet of the guarantee of life and personal liberty under Article 21, and is also traceable to the freedoms in Article 19 and equality under Article 14. This makes the Assertion, that privacy has been judicially recognised as an integral part of Article 21, a true statement.
2. Checking the Reason: Part III of the Constitution lists rights under headed articles, equality, various freedoms, protection in respect of conviction, life and personal liberty, and so on, through to cultural rights and constitutional remedies. Nowhere in this list is there an article titled or dedicated to a standalone right to privacy. So the Reason's claim of express enumeration does not match the constitutional text and is false.
3. Combining the two: A true Assertion paired with a false Reason means the only accurate description is that A is correct while R is not. A false Reason can never explain a true Assertion, so the options claiming both are true, with or without R explaining A, fall away, as does the option asserting A itself is false.

The correct answer is (A) is true, but (R) is false.

Answer 2

A useful way to test the Reason in this question is to compare how the Constitution treats rights that are genuinely spelled out on their own, against how it treats privacy.

1. Rights with their own express text: Article 19(1) expressly lists freedoms such as speech and expression, assembly, association, movement, residence and profession, each named on its own. Article 21 expressly names life and personal liberty. These are rights that Part III enumerates directly, in so many words.
2. Where privacy actually comes from: Privacy has no such express clause of its own anywhere in Part III. What happened instead, most authoritatively in the nine-judge Puttaswamy decision of 2017, is that the Court held privacy to be inherent in the dignity and liberty already guaranteed under Article 21, and connected to Articles 14 and 19. That is interpretation and reading-in, not express textual enumeration, so the Reason's claim does not hold and R is false.
3. Testing the Assertion against this background: Since the Court did recognise privacy as flowing from and integral to Article 21, the Assertion is factually accurate and true.
4. What this means for the four options: Only the option describing a true Assertion combined with a false Reason fits this picture. Every option treating R as true, whether or not said to explain A, is ruled out because R's core claim about express enumeration is simply not correct, and the option treating A as false is ruled out because A matches the Court's actual holding.

The correct answer is (A) is true, but (R) is false.