From Aadhaar to LGBT rights: Impact of SC's Right to Privacy judgment

Lawyers say the judgment will also have an impact on a ban on the consumption of beef in many states

India's Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that individual privacy is a fundamental right, a verdict that will impact everything from the way companies handle personal data to the roll-out of the world's largest biometric ID card programme.

A nine-member bench of India's Supreme Court announced the ruling in a major setback for the Narendra Modi-led government, which argued that privacy was not a fundamental right protected by the Constitution.

The court ordered that two earlier rulings by large benches that said privacy was not fundamental in 1954 and 1962 now stood overruled, and it declared privacy was "an intrinsic part of