The Civic Commons: Remaking Quintessentials Of Restoring Public Interest
Aastha Mishra & Dipanshu Dhankar, Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida
The Writ Petition filed in the matter of The Reporter’s Collective Trust and Anr. Vs. Union of India and Anr. (2026) in the hon’ble Supreme Court has issued notice to the Union government on the pleas challenging certain provisions of Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP), 2023 and Digital Personal Data Protection Rules,2025 amidst amendments of the provisions under Right to Information Act (RTI),2005
‘When its about individuals own interest, he may tend to injure the public interest but a state in protecting general welfare may check the interest of a part of its population.’
The judicial practice is often defined by an inescapable irony: it must act as the shied for the individual, yet frequently finds itself compelled by law to sacrifice that very individual at the alter of public interest in the process of delivering the justice. There have been certain incidents in the past where the judiciary has delivered the verdicts based on the reasoned standing. A challenge that has gained central attention is the writ petition filed by Venkatesh Nayak, National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, The Reporter's Collective, Nitin Sethi focusing on section 44 (3) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act which has amended section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act,2005 which provides for the exemption from disclosure of information. Earlier, the provisions of RTI allowed access to personal information only under a structured test and permitted disclosure, if lay in the larger public interest. This section stated that any information which relates to personal information, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.
The Government of India passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 with a view to safeguard people’s digital privacy while permitting the legitimate handling of personal data. However, three Supreme Court petitions have contented that certain aspects of this new privacy framework and its rules have advertently weakend transparency rules, erected obstacles for public interest journalism and increased state authority over personal data without sufficient protections.An examination into the cases leads one of question;
