‘Violates free speech, threatens journalism’: News body may move SC over DPDP Act

Digital News Publishers Association is set to move the Supreme Court challenging provisions of the DPDP Act and Rules, alleging they violate free speech and threaten journalistic activity. (file photo)

NEW DELHI: Challenging the constitutional validity of various provisions of Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and subsequent rules framed by govt, Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) is likely to move Supreme Court, alleging that they were violative of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression and threatened the full spectrum of journalistic activity.“It is prayed that sections 7, 17(2), 18, 19, 27, 29, 36, 37, 44(3) of DPDP Act and Rules 16, 17, and 23 of DPDP Rules framed under Section 40 be declared void to the extent they are in contravention of fundamental rights of the Constitution,” said the petition of the association, representing 21 of India’s leading media organisations.“The sections mentioned above fail to provide any exemption in favour of journalistic activity as a distinct class of processing, entitled to constitutional protection under Article 14 and 19(l)(a) of the Constitution and threaten the full spectrum of journalistic activity carried out by journalists, ground reporters, citizens, whistleblowers, RTI activists, and other stakeholders, and strikes at the core of our democratic framework and runs contrary to the basic tenets of the Constitution. ”It said publishers, editors, reporters and correspondents will be brought within a regime of notice and prior consent, compelled erasure and verifiable consent, obligations that cannot be reconciled with the ordinary functioning of the press. Questioning the validity of Section 44(3) of the Act, which places every category of “personal information” beyond the reach of disclosure, without regard to whether it relates to a public activity, the petition said it dismantled the balancing mechanism between right to privacy and right to information that operated for two decades.

“These provisions, taken collectively, constitute a disproportionate and excessive curtailment of the fundamental right to free speech and expression and the implicit right to know and access information as recognised under Article 19(l)(a). DPDP Act creates restrictions on the fundamental right to free speech and expression in relation to the dissemination of news,” the petition added.