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On 7 August 2026 the Supreme Court sought the Centre's response on petitions challenging the amendment of the RTI Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
The Court granted the Centre two weeks to reply, issued notice, and declined an interim stay.
The challenge centres on Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act, which amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005.
The amendment removed the 'larger public interest' override, broadly exempting all personal information from disclosure.
The Court also agreed to examine whether the Act curtails investigative journalism, while clarifying that journalists cannot be treated as a special category.
| Aspect | Original RTI provision | After the DPDP amendment |
|---|---|---|
| Ground for refusal | Personal information with no relation to public activity, or where disclosure is an unwarranted invasion of privacy | All personal information, broadly exempt |
| Public interest override | Present — information had to be disclosed if larger public interest outweighed privacy | Removed |
| Nature of the test | Case-by-case balancing by the Public Information Officer or First Appellate Authority | Blanket, one-size-fits-all exemption |
| Who applies the test | Public Information Officer or First Appellate Authority | No balancing exercise is required |
Both the RTI Act, 2005 and the DPDP Act, 2023 are laws made by Parliament, so neither automatically overrides the other on the federal ground that usually settles such conflicts. The Court noted that the two must be harmonised, and framed the issue as whether the later law is 'repugnant' to the earlier one — a matter it said it would approach with extreme circumspection precisely because both are central statutes. The Court also drew a distinction of scope: the RTI Act operates over a much larger domain, covering information in all forms, physical and digital, while the DPDP Act concerns only data in digital form. The Court accepted that most data today is digital, but held that the distinction remains legally significant.
Simple Analogy: If one rule says a library must lend any book when the public gains from it, and a later rule says no book with a person's name in it may leave the shelf, the librarian is not free to ignore either. A court must decide how far the second rule was meant to displace the first.
Gives citizens access to information held by public authorities, subject to exemptions in Section 8; covers information in all forms, physical and digital.
Regulates the processing of personal data in digital form; its Section 44(3) amended the RTI Act's personal-information exemption.
The exemption clause for personal information, which originally carried a larger public interest override that the amendment removed.
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Under the DPDP Act, the individual to whom the personal data relates; their consent is generally required for processing.
A conflict between two laws such that both cannot operate together; here raised between two central statutes rather than between central and state law.
A blanket restriction applied as a whole, without case-by-case assessment — the Court's description of the DPDP approach to personal data.
The officer within a public authority who hears the first appeal against a Public Information Officer's decision under the RTI Act.