The Death of the Public Interest Test? Supreme Court Kicks DPDP-RTI Clash Down the Road While Delhi HC Drops an AI Copyright Bombshell

The Constitutional Standoff: Privacy vs. Transparency

For years, Indian technology lawyers have treated the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 as a theoretical compliance hurdle. In 2026, the theory has violently collided with practice. The most consequential development this week isn't just about data compliance—it is about the fundamental right to information.

The Supreme Court has officially referred the constitutional challenge against the DPDP-linked amendment to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 to a larger bench. Crucially, the Court refused to stay the operation of the legislation pending final adjudication. For practicing lawyers and journalists, this refusal is a staggering blow to transparency.

At the heart of this dispute is Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act, which quietly eviscerated Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. Before this amendment, Public Information Officers (PIOs) could disclose personal information if they determined that the larger public interest justified the disclosure. The DPDP Act replaced this nuanced balancing test with a draconian, blanket ban on the disclosure of any personal information.

"By removing the public interest exemption, the State has effectively weaponized privacy to shield itself from accountability. A blanket ban on personal data disclosure under the RTI Act fundamentally alters the Article 19(1)(a) landscape."

Why this matters for your practice: If you are a litigator relying on RTI applications to unearth administrative irregularities, beneficiary lists, or public employment anomalies, your primary investigative tool has just been neutralized. Until the larger bench decides whether this blanket exemption violates Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution, government departments have absolute statutory cover to reject RTI queries by merely whispering the words "personal data."

The Compliance Clock is Ticking, But Where is the Regulator?

On the corporate advisory front, the regulatory environment is bordering on farcical. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notified the finalized DPDP Rules, 2025 on November 13, 2025. We are now rapidly approaching the November 13, 2026 deadline for the operationalization of the Consent Manager framework under Rule 4, with full substantive compliance for Data Fiduciaries mandated by May 13, 2027.

Yet, as of mid-2026, the Data Protection Board of India (DPBI) remains a ghost town. Established in law, but virtually unstaffed in fact. The government has initiated nomination and appointment processes, but the delay is inexcusable.

The practical fallout: General Counsels and compliance teams are pouring millions of rupees into overhauling data architecture, drafting fresh notices, and onboarding Consent Managers, all without a functional regulator to issue guidance on edge cases. Furthermore, cross-border data transfer rules remain in limbo. Transactional lawyers are currently redrafting cross-border data transfer agreements based on anticipated guidelines rather than actual law—a highly risky strategy that could expose clients to severe penalties once the DPBI actually wakes up.

My advice to corporate practitioners? Do not wait for the DPBI. Treat student data under schemes like APAAR as strictly governed by the DPDP Act—meaning zero third-party disclosure without explicit, verifiable consent. Build your compliance architecture for the strictest possible interpretation of the Rules. It is cheaper to dial back compliance than to defend a test case before a newly appointed, eager-to-prove-itself Board.

Delhi High Court’s AI Bombshell: Is Scraping Now "Fair Dealing"?

While the Supreme Court grapples with privacy, the Delhi High Court has quietly dropped a ruling that could upend Indian Intellectual Property jurisprudence. In the highly watched litigation between news agency ANI and OpenAI, the Court reportedly held—at least prima facie—that OpenAI's storage and use of ANI’s copyrighted works to train Large Language Models (LLMs) could fall within the "fair dealing" exception for research under Section 52(1)(a) of the Copyright Act, 1957.

This is a dangerous and overly permissive interpretation of the law. Section 52(1)(a) was designed to protect scholars, critics, and private researchers—not trillion-dollar tech conglomerates scraping the internet to build commercial products that directly compete with the original content creators.

What changes in practice: If this prima facie view solidifies into binding precedent, traditional copyright enforcement against AI companies in India is dead on arrival. IP litigators representing media houses, authors, and artists must immediately pivot their strategy. You can no longer rely solely on plain-vanilla infringement claims under Section 51. You must aggressively argue the commercial nature of the AI output, proving that LLM training is not "research" but industrial-scale misappropriation that destroys the primary market for the copyrighted work.

The Bottom Line

2026 is proving to be a watershed year where legacy statutes (RTI Act, Copyright Act) are fracturing under the weight of new technologies and aggressive legislative overhauls (DPDP Act). For Indian lawyers, resting on the jurisprudence of the 2010s is no longer an option. Whether you are navigating the unstaffed corridors of data protection or fighting for authors' rights against Silicon Valley algorithms, the law is being rewritten right now. Litigate accordingly.