Journalist Saurav Das filed an RTI request asking about 8,630 complaints against sitting judges. The government said no — citing a law passed in 2023 that quietly removed the one clause that would have forced disclosure. That clause protected Indian transparency for two decades. Now, in what has become the DPDP Act Supreme Court challenge 2026, the people who relied on it most are fighting to get it back.
What the DPDP Act Actually Changed
Section 44(3) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. The old version had a safety valve: personal information about public servants could be disclosed if “larger public interest” warranted it. Whistleblowers, investigative journalists, and RTI activists relied on this for everything from exposing corruption to tracking officials’ assets.
The amendment removed that test entirely. Now, any RTI request involving personal information gets a blanket exemption — no balancing, no exceptions. Privacy isn’t being added. Transparency is being subtracted.
Who’s Fighting — and What the Court Said
The petitioners read like a roster of India’s transparency movement: The Reporters’ Collective, journalist Nitin Sethi backed by the Internet Freedom Foundation, RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj from NCPRI, journalist Geeta Seshu with Senior Advocate Indira Jaising, and activist Venkatesh Nayak. They aren’t challenging privacy protections — they’re challenging the removal of accountability safeguards.
The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre on February 16 and again on March 13, referring the matter to a larger bench. The justices asked a pointed question: what counts as public data versus private data? They also noted that data is the “true wealth” of the modern era — and that neither privacy nor information rights should destroy the other.
The Court declined to stay the Act. The Centre must respond by March 23 — tomorrow.
The Pattern That Should Worry You
This isn’t isolated. Anonymous political funding through electoral bonds, FCRA amendments restricting NGO foreign funding, weakened information commissioner appointments through the 2019 RTI amendments, and now the DPDP Act gutting the public interest override. Each change, individually defensible. Together, they form a shrinking window into how power operates.
The government argues privacy demands it. The petitioners argue that a law exempting the government from its own data protection standards while stripping citizens’ right to scrutinise public servants isn’t privacy — it’s insulation.
Tomorrow’s deadline won’t end the DPDP Act Supreme Court challenge 2026. But it will reveal whether the Centre treats the Court’s questions as a formality or an inflection point. Twenty years of transparency infrastructure hangs on the answer.