New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday referred various petitions seeking scrapping of some sections of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and Digital Personal Data Protection Rules 2025 to a larger bench of five judges.
However, a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi refused to stay operations of Sections of the 2023 Act and 2025 Rules, saying, “(There is) no question of stay. By an interim order, (we) will not thwart a regime introduced by Parliament unless we hear the case.”
Terming the issue as “complex, but interesting” as it touched upon the “fundamental rights of both sides,” the apex court said that “some ironing out of the creases might be needed to strike a balance”. It posted the matter for further hearing on March 23.
Human rights and transparency activist Venkatesh Nayak, the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, The Reporters’ Collective, and Nitin Sethi, a journalist, had challenged various provisions allowing public authorities to blankly refuse information on the ground that these were “personal” in nature, thus empowering the Centre to seek information from data fiduciaries, and the selection of members of the Data Protection Board.
Stating that the amendments weaken accountability mechanisms, particularly in cases where information about public officials or the use of public resources was sought, they alleged that Section 44(3) of the 2023 Act had amended Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, to facilitate public authorities to refuse information on the ground that the details sought were of a “personal” nature.
The petitioners also contended that the amendment to Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act had rendered the “right to information illusory” and sounded the death knell for participatory democracy besides being ruinous to ideas of open governance.
They also raised objections to the structure of the Act, including the degree of discretion vested in the executive and the absence of clear safeguards to prevent misuse of exemptions.
The petitions contended that the amendment had turned the fundamental right to privacy on its head. The right, meant to protect ordinary citizens against state incursion, had been extended to protect the state and public functionaries from the RTI disclosures, they added.
Earlier, 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.
