SC to examine if Data Protection Act blunts RTI Act | India News

New Delhi: Supreme Court On Monday it agreed to hear three petitions alleging that amendments to the Right to Information (RTI) Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act have rendered the former Act toothless by providing a handle for authorities to deny information that is “personal”, but rejected pleas to suspend the provision of Right to Information in DPs.Senior advocates AM Singhvi, Vrinda Grover and counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the three PIL petitioners, told a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Jayamalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi that the RTI Act essentially exempted personal information that had nothing to do with the individual through all public activities under the current Act. “Information Relating to Personal Matters”.The bench said it will examine the concerns of the petitioners keeping in mind the need to balance the right to privacy with the right to information.“To some extent, this is a complex, sensitive but interesting issue that requires balancing,” the bench said while strongly rejecting Bhushan’s plea seeking a stay on the amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.“Unamended Article 8(1)(j) was not a mere statutory exception; it embodied a legally binding proportionality mechanism. It only exempted personal information where disclosure had no relation to any public activity or interest or would cause an unreasonable invasion of privacy, and even then it required disclosure of a large public interest where NGO petitions were required.”