“PUT IT IN THE LAW”: KARAN BIR SINGH SIDHU SHOOTS OFF LETTER TO ASHWINI VAISHNAW ON PRESS FREEDOM UNDER THE DATA PROTECTION ACT

Face2News/Chandigarh 

Responding to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s statement that “the journalistic freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution of India” and that “there is not even an intention to affect journalistic freedom,” Karan Bir Singh Sidhu (KBS Sidhu), IAS (retd.), former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, and Founder-Editor of The KBS Chronicle, shot off a letter to the Minister last evening. Writing to Shri Vaishnaw, who holds the portfolios of Electronics and Information Technology and of Information and Broadcasting, he urged the Government of India to introduce statutory safeguards for journalism under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 framed under it.

Welcoming the Minister’s assurance, Mr Sidhu said it should now be given the force of law, because the Data Protection Board and the courts will be guided by the text of the Act and not by statements made outside it. He added that the Act confers rights on every person whose data is processed, and that a Minister’s assurance cannot bind a private party who chooses to take a journalist to the Board or to court.

In his letter, Mr Sidhu sought:

*An exemption for the processing of personal data for journalistic purposes in the public interest from the requirements of notice, consent and erasure, as proposed in the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee’s 2018 draft and as provided in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Singapore.
*Protection of published and archived news reports from demands for erasure.
*Prior judicial authorisation before any requisition of information from a news organisation, with journalists’ notes, unpublished material and sources expressly excluded.
*Restoration of the public-interest test in Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which was removed by Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act.
*A statement of the Government’s position on journalistic activity, placed on record by affidavit before the Supreme Court ahead of the hearing on 17 November 2026.

As a longer-term measure, he urged a national, cross-party consultation on recognising freedom of the press in Part III of the Constitution in its own right.

“The Supreme Court has issued notice on the challenge by the news publishers, but nothing precludes the Government of India from taking this progressive step on its own,” Mr Sidhu said. “If, as the Minister says, there is no intention to curtail press freedom, writing that intention into the law costs the Government nothing. Privacy and freedom of the press are not in conflict. A well-drafted law can protect both.”

The Supreme Court on 27 October issued notice to the Union Government on a petition by the Digital News Publishers Association, representing 21 news organisations, challenging provisions of the Act and the Rules. The matter is listed with connected petitions on 17 November.