Need to strike balance between privacy and public interest: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said blanket access to private information of a public official cannot be sought on grounds of public interest.A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said, “The right to access information in public interest must be balanced with the right to privacy of an individual. There cannot be a provision that allows blanket access to an individual’s private information.” Meanwhile, a bench of Chief Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said Pancholi agreed to accept a petition challenging the restrictions imposed to protect privacy in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP).Senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for the petitioners, said the provisions of the Right to Information Act that allow access to private data on the background of persons appointed to public or constitutional offices are invalid under the DPDP Act.She said the state could obtain any data on anyone under the guise of public order, which could lead to state surveillance of citizens. Ultimately, the judge said, courts must define what data can be classified as public and private.Jaising said people whose data was illegally accessed are liable to get compensation under the Information and Technology Act. But she complained that under the DPDP Act, compensation would go to the government and not the person whose data was illegally accessed.The Data Protection Commission of India is the main regulator of data privacy and although it determines competition rights, there is no judicial oversight, she said. The judges agreed that in such a case there should be a judicially trained person on the board. “These matters require urgent adjudication,” the judge said, agreeing that they should be included in the list as soon as possible.The SC on February 16 entertained three petitions claiming that the amendments to the RTI Act required by the DPDP Act have reduced the right to information to something that exists only on paper as it provides an excuse for authorities to deny information by classifying it as “individual”. However, it refused to stay the operation of the bill, whose provisions had been justified by citing the Supreme Court judgment in Puttaswamy case, where the right to privacy was considered as one of the fundamental rights.