SC to examine impact of DPDP law on RTI, investigative journalism

The Supreme Court on Friday (August 7, 2026) agreed to examine if the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 can be used to cripple the Right to Information Act by classifying all data as “personal” and, separately, gag investigative journalists.

The court said both the DPDP Act and the RTI Act were central legislations. There was a need to actually harmonise them.

“The earlier law (Right to Information Act, 2005) gave certain access with conditions. Here (2023 Act), there is an en bloc embargo. Is this latter law repugnant to earlier law? This has to be looked into with extreme circumspection. After all, both are central laws. There is a need to actually harmonise these two,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi remarked.

Different domain

Justice Bagchi said the RTI law operated on a “much larger domain” than the DPDP Act. It covered all forms of data, while the DPDP law was only concerned with data in a digital form. The court said this even though acknowledging that the data was now overwhelmingly in the digital format.

The judge said the court would examine if this restrictive or “cautionary approach” to sharing data under the DPDP Act worked to repeal earlier transparency legislations.

The court was hearing multiple petitions challenging provisions of the DPDP Act, primarily Section 44(3), which had amended the RTI Act to facilitate public authorities to blankly refuse information on the ground that the details sought was of a “personal” nature.

Turned on its head

The petitioners, represented by advocate Vrinda Grover, submitted that the provision has turned the fundamental right to privacy on its head. The right, meant to protect ordinary citizens against State incursion, has been extended to protect the State and public functionaries from RTI disclosures.

They have argued that Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act has amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. Originally, the RTI provision had exempted authorities from disclosing personal information to an applicant if the details sought had no relationship to any public activity or if disclosure would amount to unwarranted invasion of privacy. Even then, the government had to disclose if public interest outweighed privacy. The decision whether or not to reveal “personal information” was taken by a Public Information Officer or the First Appellate Authority under the RTI Act after thoroughly weighing privacy and transparency concerns.

One of the petitioners, Foundation for Media Professionals, represented by advocate Nisha Bhambhani, pointed out that the 2023 Act threatened to have a grave impact on investigative journalism.

“The Act was not granting exemption to journalists. If a journalist is reporting, they would have to seek the consent of the data principal. If the data principal wants to erase the data, they can do it. This has a direct effect on investigative journalism,” the counsel submitted.

No special category

The court said journalists cannot be considered a “special category” with unreserved access to data.

Agreeing to examine the impact of the data protection law on journalistic activities, Justice Bagchi highlighted that neither Supreme Court judgments on public transparency (Subhash Chandra Agarwal case) and press freedom (Indian Express Bombay Pvt Ltd case) nor RTI Act had considered journalists a “special category”.