By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers
NEW YORK: India’s digital media industry has taken an unusually significant step in challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Twenty-one major news publishers, including media organisations owned by Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, have approached the Supreme Court, arguing that India’s digital privacy legislation could undermine investigative journalism, compromise confidential sources and make publication of stories about powerful individuals legally hazardous.
The challenge is important not simply because it brings some of India’s biggest media businesses into confrontation with the government. It raises a fundamental question for democracies everywhere: Can a government protect citizens’ digital privacy without making it harder for journalists to expose corruption, corporate wrongdoing and the abuse of public power?
The legislation at the centre of the dispute is the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), together with the rules notified in 2025. The publishers argue that the absence of a specific exemption for journalistic activities leaves newsrooms exposed to requirements that were designed principally to regulate the processing of personal data by organisations, rather than to govern the investigation and publication of matters of public interest
What exactly are the publishers challenging? The Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), whose membership includes Network18, associated with Ambani’s Reliance group; Adani-owned NDTV; The Indian Express; and Times Internet, representing the Times group, says several provisions of the legislation could fundamentally change how news is gathered and published.
The petition was filed on October 6, 2026. On October 27, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre, with the next hearing scheduled for November 17. The court has not yet delivered a final judgment on the constitutional challenge. Three principal concerns stand out.
First, the requirement to notify individuals and obtain consent. Under the law’s data-processing framework, using an individual’s digital personal data can trigger notice and consent obligations. Consider a journalist investigating a public official’s unexplained wealth, a corporate executive’s undisclosed financial interests or suspected corruption in the award of a government contract. If the investigation requires the journalist or publisher to notify the person being investigated and seek consent, the subject could destroy records, intimidate witnesses or obstruct the inquiry before the story is published.
Second, the right to withdraw consent and seek erasure. The legislation gives individuals rights concerning the continued processing of their personal data, including withdrawal of consent and erasure in applicable circumstances. Publishers fear that a person featured in a legitimate public-interest investigation could invoke these provisions to demand removal or extensive redaction of a published report. The issue is not whether ordinary citizens deserve privacy; they do. It is whether privacy rights should operate without adequate safeguards for independently verified journalism.
Third, government access to information and confidential sources. The publishers object to provisions allowing the government to demand information from organisations handling personal data. They argue that the powers could expose information held by newsrooms and put confidential reporter-source communications at risk.
The petition also raises concerns about substantial financial penalties and the possibility of content-blocking measures. For smaller publishers, the cost of defending a disputed investigation could itself become a deterrent.
These are arguments advanced by the petitioners, not findings already established by the Supreme Court. But they identify a genuine conflict between two rights that democratic governments must reconcile.
Is freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 1 of the Indian Constitution? There is an important constitutional distinction here. Freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a), not Article 1, of the Indian Constitution.
Article 19(1)(a) gives citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. Although the Constitution does not separately enumerate a fundamental right called “freedom of the press”, the Supreme Court has recognised press freedom as an integral part of this constitutional guarantee.
The right is not absolute. Article 19(2) permits reasonable restrictions on specified grounds, including national security, public order, defamation and incitement to an offence.
The constitutional question, therefore, is not whether India can regulate digital data or protect individual privacy. It can. The question is whether a particular restriction is constitutionally justified, proportionate to its purpose and compatible with the fundamental right it affects.
The Supreme Court’s landmark 2017 judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India recognised privacy as a fundamental right. But privacy and press freedom need not be mutually exclusive. A carefully drafted law can protect private medical information, financial records and intimate personal details without giving public officials or corporate executives a practical veto over legitimate investigations.
The absence of a clear journalistic exemption is at the heart of the publishers’ argument. They contend that earlier versions of India’s proposed data-protection legislation contained express provisions for journalism, whereas the enacted framework does not provide an equivalent specific safeguard.
Their case is that the law risks treating the publication of information in the public interest as if it were simply another commercial use of personal data.
The United States: strong constitutional protection, but no absolute immunity. The First Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits Congress from making laws abridging freedom of speech or of the press. It is among the strongest constitutional guarantees of an independent press, but it does not exempt journalists from every generally applicable law.
American courts have frequently defended the right of newspapers to publish matters of public concern. The Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), the Pentagon Papers case, established a formidable barrier against prior restraint, when the government sought to prevent publication of classified material.
Yet the American system is not without complications. In Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), the Supreme Court rejected an absolute First Amendment privilege allowing journalists to refuse to testify before grand juries about criminal investigations. Many states subsequently adopted shield laws providing varying degrees of protection for confidential sources, while federal protection remains more complicated.
In 2025, the US Justice Department revised its policy on obtaining information from journalists, restoring procedural protections and treating compulsory legal process for newsgathering material as an extraordinary measure rather than routine practice. These are departmental safeguards, not an absolute constitutional guarantee of source confidentiality.
The American lesson is that freedom of the press requires more than constitutional language. It also depends on legislation, judicial independence, enforcement practices and the willingness of institutions to tolerate uncomfortable reporting.
Europe: privacy protection with explicit safeguards for journalism. European democracies offer a particularly relevant comparison because many have developed comprehensive privacy laws while maintaining distinct protections for journalistic activity.
European Union; The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not simply exempt all journalism from privacy rules. Article 85 requires member states to reconcile data protection with freedom of expression and information, including journalistic purposes, through national law.
The EU has also adopted the European Media Freedom Act, which entered into force in 2024, with most provisions applying from August 2025. It establishes safeguards concerning media independence and political interference, including protections relevant to journalistic sources. Its anti-SLAPP legislation, adopted in 2024, seeks to protect journalists and others from abusive lawsuits intended to silence public-interest reporting.
Britain has extensive surveillance and investigatory powers under laws including the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. These powers can intersect with journalistic confidentiality, particularly when authorities seek communications data to identify a source. However, the British framework also contains safeguards. Current government guidance states that, in ordinary circumstances, authorisation to obtain communications data for identifying a journalist’s source requires independent judicial approval. The public interest in protecting confidential sources must be weighed against any compelling overriding public interest in disclosure.
A particularly important precedent is Goodwin v. United Kingdom (1996). The European Court of Human Rights ruled that compelling a journalist to disclose a confidential source violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in that case.
The court described source protection as a basic condition of press freedom and held that disclosure could be justified only by an overriding public-interest requirement. This principle recognises that whistleblowers will often remain silent if journalists cannot protect their identities.
Europe is not uniformly free of press restrictions. Governments have invoked national security, terrorism, public order, defamation and surveillance laws in ways that can burden journalism. Some EU member states have also faced serious disputes over political influence on public broadcasters, media ownership and the independence of regulators.
The European model is therefore not one of unrestricted publication. It is an attempt—sometimes imperfect—to establish that restrictions must be justified and that journalists should not automatically lose protection merely because their work involves personal data or confidential information.
The issue is not simply whether a reporter must obtain consent before publishing someone’s private information. Responsible journalism already requires verification, fairness, consideration of harm and a distinction between legitimate public interest and gratuitous intrusion. The difficulty arises when consent becomes a precondition for investigating wrongdoing.
Imagine an investigation into a public procurement contract. A whistleblower provides documents showing possible collusion between a company and a government official. The reporter must verify the documents, corroborate the allegations and seek responses before publication. If the investigation triggers a requirement to notify the subjects or obtain their consent before processing relevant personal data, the very act of investigating could alert those implicated.
Similarly, if an individual can invoke data-erasure rights without a sufficiently clear public-interest safeguard, a published investigation might become vulnerable to repeated demands for removal. Even if a publisher ultimately wins in court, the expense, delay and uncertainty could discourage smaller newsrooms from pursuing sensitive stories.
The source-protection concern is equally serious. A journalist’s confidential communications may reveal the identity of a whistleblower even if no law expressly orders the journalist to name that person. Broad information-gathering powers, particularly where disclosure of a government request can be restricted, could create that risk.
The petitioners also argue that the government receives exemptions for certain state functions without equivalent protection for the press. The legal dispute will test whether that distinction is defensible and whether the law’s safeguards are sufficient.
Does the involvement of Ambani and Adani change the politics? It certainly makes the case more striking. Network18 and NDTV are associated with two of India’s most prominent business groups, often discussed in public debate about corporate power and political influence. Their participation alongside The Indian Express, Times Internet and other publishers makes this a broader institutional challenge than a petition brought only by small independent outlets.
It would be premature, however, to interpret the action as a political break with Modi. The publishers’ stated concerns are about the practical and legal consequences of data-protection rules for journalism. Their challenge does not establish that they oppose the government’s wider political programme.
Nor does the participation of large media companies resolve the underlying issue. If anything, the case demonstrates that even well-resourced publishers believe the absence of explicit safeguards could expose their operations to legal uncertainty. Smaller and financially weaker publications may be more vulnerable to that uncertainty.
The government, for its part, has maintained that it respects press freedom and has defended India’s media ecosystem. Protecting personal data is a legitimate policy objective. The task is to achieve that objective without creating unnecessary obstacles to public-interest reporting.
India’s Supreme Court has an opportunity to clarify the boundary between two fundamental democratic interests: the individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know.
A sensible legal framework would protect personal information against misuse, prohibit reckless or gratuitous invasions of privacy, and preserve remedies for people whose reputations are damaged by false reporting. At the same time, it would provide a clear, enforceable exemption for bona fide journalism undertaken in the public interest.
Such protection should not be a licence to publish anything. It should be accompanied by professional standards, fact-checking, accountability for demonstrably unlawful conduct and carefully defined exceptions for compelling public interests. Government access to confidential journalistic material should be subject to meaningful independent oversight, necessity and proportionality.
Most importantly, publishers should not have to depend on informal assurances from the government. The safeguards must be written into the law and capable of enforcement in court.
The fundamental principle is simple: privacy must protect citizens from unjustified exposure, not shield powerful people from legitimate scrutiny. Consent is appropriate for many commercial uses of personal data. But investigative journalism cannot function if the people being investigated are entitled to approve the investigation before it proceeds.
The American First Amendment and India’s Article 19(1)(a) differ in their constitutional structures, while European systems balance press freedom with privacy through a combination of legislation and human-rights jurisprudence. They nevertheless share a central democratic insight: a free press is not merely a business or a platform for commentary. It is one of the institutions through which citizens hold power accountable.
The Supreme Court’s forthcoming hearings will determine whether India’s digital privacy regime can be reconciled with that responsibility. The stakes extend well beyond the fortunes of 21 publishers. They concern the ability of every Indian newsroom—large or small—to investigate matters of public interest without first asking permission from the people whose conduct it seeks to scrutinise. (IPA Service)
