Supreme Court to Hear Constitutional Challenge to DPDP Act, 2023

The Supreme Court of India has issued notice on three writ petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025. The petitions, filed by Venkatesh Nayak, The Reporters Collective Trust, and the National Campaign for Peoples Right to Information, argue that the framework undermines press freedom, RTI-based transparency, and democratic accountability.

A central plank of the challenge is the absence of any explicit public interest, research, or journalistic exemption in the DPDP Act. Petitioners contend that this omission makes the law unconstitutional, unreasonable, and manifestly arbitrary, especially for investigative journalism and RTI-driven public interest work that routinely involves processing personal data. They also assail Section 44(3), which dilutes the Right to Information Act, and Section 36, which grants the government broad powers over personal data, as violating Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution.

Recognising the issues as complex and sensitive, the Court has referred the matter to a larger bench, signalling that the case will likely shape the contours of India’s data protection regime for years to come. However, the Court has not stayed the operation of the DPDP Act or the Rules, meaning that compliance obligations for data fiduciaries and data processors remain fully in force pending final adjudication. The next hearing is scheduled for March 2026, giving stakeholders a long runway to both comply with the current framework and closely track potential constitutional recalibration.

For civil society, newsrooms, and RTI activists, the outcome will be pivotal in determining how far data protection norms can restrict or must accommodate fundamental rights to free expression and access to information. Organisations engaged in public interest investigations may need to carefully document their legal bases for processing personal data and prepare for a scenario where the Court either reads in safeguards or strikes down or narrows key provisions such as Section 36 and the RTI-related amendments.