SC seeks Union govt response to media body’s petition challenging data protection law

The Supreme Court has issued notice on a petition challenging the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, filed by the Digital News Publishers Association.“This is the first comprehensive petition by ‘legacy media’. We are the traditional, conventional legacy media. This will change the whole concept of news. If I am left to the mercy of the data principal on whether he or she will give consent, the concept of news will be gone... News has to be new. It will close down the newsroom. What’s the point if I have to ask for permission and consent?” said Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan, representing the digital wings of 21 mainstream news outlets, according to LiveLaw.Others raised similar concerns before.When the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were notified on November 15 last year, the DIGIPUB News India Foundation said the Act and the Rules “endanger source confidentiality, hinder public-interest investigations, obstruct anti-corruption disclosures”. DIGIPUB said it had earlier submitted formal objections to the removal of the journalistic carve-out from the DPDPA, 2023 and also highlighted that Section 44(3) substitutes Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, thereby abolishing the public-interest override and making access to information even more restrictive. Even the Editors Guild of India warned that without an explicit exemption, journalism risks being treated as personal data processing that requires consent, “thereby chilling newsgathering and hindering accountability journalism”Now, 21 news publishers, including outlets owned by Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, have told the Supreme Court that India’s data protection law would “render investigative journalism a benign and neutered recorder of events”. The petition, filed on October 6 by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), calls the law’s provisions “pre-censorship which is anathema to any democracy worth its name”. Running to 698 pages, it asks the court to quash most of the contentious provisions, which take effect from May 2027. DNPA’s members include Ambani’s Network18, Adani’s NDTV, the Indian Express and Times Internet, part of the Times of India group.Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana heard the matter on Tuesday. The CJI said that a balance has to be struck between the rights of the citizens and those of the media.The bench issued notice on the petition as well as the application for stay. Divan informed the bench that there are other pending petitions which challenge the amendment to the RTI Act, however, this was the first comprehensive challenge on the ground of impact on journalism.“This Act, when your lordships will see it, was not meant for journalism at all. The earlier avatars excluded us, we don't know why this has happened. It was not meant for us. Newsrooms will shut down if we have to ask for permission. This will set in a regime of pre-censorship. We have to ask someone’s permission to report on them! How can that be? What will be news then? We will face the consequences if there is something wrong, but it cannot be frozen before it is published. We are regulated in any case,” Divan told the court, according to LiveLaw.What is DNPA objecting to? DNPA’s central objection is that the law contains no exemption for journalists. According to the filing, the government assured publishers at an August meeting that the law would protect press freedom and that the absence of a written carve-out along the lines of what’s available in  jurisdictions like the European Union, Singapore and Britain, was “alarming”.The petition raises three main concerns, beginning with consent. Platforms and retailers can seek it from users at sign-up, but DNPA argues that requiring a journalist to notify the subject of an investigation and obtain consent “would allow that subject to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses”. The law also allows individuals to withdraw consent at any time and demand erasure of their data, without a public-interest safeguard. DNPA says this could force publishers to unpublish or heavily redact factual reports.The second concern is the powers granted to the state. A federal authority established under the law can impose fines for non-compliance, and the Centre can block access to information in the “interests of the general public”. In an August letter to the government, DNPA said India “has chosen to grant broad exemptions to the state, while failing to extend any corresponding protection to the press”. The Reuters report noted that no response is cited.The third concern is about sources. From next year, the law allows the government to order any organisation handling personal data “to furnish such information as it may call for”. DNPA calls the provision “nakedly unguided” and says the power “can extend to privileged communications in possession of a reporter or the informant”. It also argues that this could deter whistleblowers from approaching reporters about corruption, corporate wrongdoing or electoral malpractice.In its November 2025 statement, the Editors Guild recalled that in July 2025 the secretary of the Electronics and Information Technology Ministry (MeitY) told press bodies that journalistic work would not fall within the Act. The Guild then sent the ministry 35 questions. “There has been no official response since then,” it said. The August meeting DNPA describes ended the same way with a verbal assurance, but no written carve-out.The DNPA challenge is also notable for who is making it. Opposition parties have alleged that Ambani and Adani are close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and receive favourable treatment. The businesses and the government deny this. DNPA, its member companies and MeitY did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.