“Union of Inida” (hereinafter referred to as Inida) is a constitutionally democratic country in South

Asia with 135.26 crore population and Relhi as its capital city. Inida has a quasi-federal system and
the Constitution and all laws of the Union of Inida are in pari Materia to the laws of India. In 2020, a
virus outbreak resulted in the death of over 4 lakh people around the world and the same, which
was identified as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (hereinafter 'virus') affected
more than 2.5 lakh people in Inida and was responsible for the death of more than 8000 people. The
disease caused by the virus, identified as COVID-19 a.k.a. Corona Virus Disease (hereinafter
'disease'), was declared as a global pandemic by the WHO and is still spreading across the world at a
shocking rate.

To control the spread of the virus, the Inida government declared a nationwide lockdown that lasted
for 2 months. Partial lifting of lockdown started in the latter half of the second month and the Inida
government had allowed inter-district and inter-state travel by road, rail and air modes subject to
travellers following the government's institutional and home quarantine instructions.

PLOT 1

The Inida government with a view to safeguard people from contracting the virus and to curb
massive spread of virus mandated the installation and use of a mobile application named “Health
link”1 (hereinafter 'application') especially for travel by air and rail. According to the Inida
government, the application is intended to enable contact tracing as a means to control the spread
of the virus. The government has mandated that the application should be mandatorily used by all
private and government employees and it has been implemented as part of the country's health
surveillance due to drastic increase in the number of positive cases and deaths due to the virus.

The government has also promised delivery of smart phones at concessional prices to those who are
unable to use the application due to non-availability of smart phones. The application that uses both
'bluetooth' and 'location access' relies on voluntary data collected to discover clusters and take
sufficient safety measures to curb spread of virus. Hence the users must regularly update their
health status so that community spread can be controlled.

Though the Inida government repeatedly stated that the mobile application “Health link” is in tune
with mobile applications launched in other countries for tracing persons who test positive for the
disease, an Inida cyber security analyst named Ryan, residing in the capital city of Relhi, made
several Facebook audio posts alleging that the mobile application “Health link” which uses both
'bluetooth' and 'location access' cannot be said to be similar to those applications developed by
other countries as the applications of other countries do not access user's location and only uses
'bluetooth' for identifying positive cases. The audio posts also alleged that “Health link”, on account
of its access to user's location, is a threat to privacy and hence cannot be made mandatory under the
guise of health surveillance. The audio posts also stated that the excessive data collected with the
help of access to user's location is a severe violation of fundamental rights.

Ryan files a petition before the Honourable Supreme Court of Inida challenging the directions of the
Inida government making installation and use of “Health link” mandatory on account of violation of
right to privacy. He specifically mentions in his petition that the compulsory instructions to use the
application go against the ratio propounded in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. v. Union of
India.

PLOT 2
The Relhi state police arrested Ryan on account of the Facebook audio posts made by him against
the directions of the Inida government making installation and use of “Health link” mandatory and
charged him under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code for the offence of causing disharmony and
feeling of hatred which disturb public tranquility. During the trial, the trial court directed the
investigating agency to test voice samples of the accused with the help of technical experts. Ryan
approached the Relhi High Court by way of a writ petition challenging the direction of the trial court
to test the voice samples but the Relhi High Court dismissed the writ petition on account of the
precedent set by the Honourable Supreme Court of Inida in the matter of Ritesh Sinha v. State of UP
(2019).

Aggrieved by this, Ryan approaches the Honourable Supreme Court of Inida by way of an appeal and
contends that the decision laid down in Ritesh Sinha v. State of UP (2019) needs a recheck as the
Honourable Supreme Court of Inida cannot invoke Article 142 of the Constitution of Inida to confer
power on the trial court to order to test voice samples which is equivalent to invoking Article 142 of
the Constitution of Inida to infringe fundamental rights, especially, right to privacy.

PLOT 3

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister's Office of Inida (PMOI) received several requests
from members of the public to set up an emergency fund that could be used for combating COVID-
19 pandemic and other similar situations in the future. Accordingly, the PMOI created the Prime
Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) with the
primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the
COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected.

After a month from establishing the PM CARES Fund, PMOI in response to an application filed under
the Right to Information Act, 2005 informed the applicant that the PM CARES Fund is not a public
authority under the RTI Act.

Immediately after this response to the RTI application, a PIL was filed in the Relhi High Court seeking
transparency in PM CARES Fund and a direction to display information in the concerned website
regarding details of money received and spent under the Right Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The PIL
was filed by a Relhi based lawyer Dino and though the petitioner contended that the public and
especially the COVID-19 victims have a “right to know” about the fund collected, the Relhi High
Court dismissed the PIL and affirmed that the PM CARES Fund is not a public authority within the
meaning of Right to Information Act, 2005. Aggrieved by this, Advocate Dino has approached the
Honourable Supreme Court of Inida by way of an appeal.

PLOT 4

The government of Inida, as part of partial lifting of lockdown, also allowed reopening of places of
worship in addition to allowing all industrial units and places of employment to function with 100%
staff. Though the Inida government had issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)2, a section of
atheists of Inida who are part of a voluntary organization named “Ethics Without Religion” filed a
petition before the Honourable Supreme Court of Inida challenging the decision of the Government
of Inida to allow reopening of places of worship during the time of an emergency situation posed by
the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the petitioners, the freedom of religion under Part III of the Constitution of Inida is
subject to "health" and it is not the right time to reopening places of worship. All the above petitions
and appeals have come before the Supreme Court of Inida in the same period and considering the
fact that all the petitions and appeals involve issues related to constitutional validity, the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of Inida decided to hear all these matters jointly before a five judges
bench through its virtual platform.