Right to Privacy in India: Puttaswamy Case, Timeline and Its Impact

Challenges to the DPDP Act reach the Supreme Court; no stay Latest

Several petitions now question parts of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its 2025 Rules. They include challenges to Section 44(3), which rewrote the personal-information exemption in Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act. The Supreme Court issued notice on one such petition, filed by Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, on 13 April 2026 (LawBeat).

In late October 2026 a petition by the Digital News Publishers Association came up. The Court declined to stay the Act without first hearing the Union government and listed the matter for 17 November 2026 (MediaNama). The petitions argue, among other things, that the law restricts journalism and weakens the RTI Act. Those are the petitioners’ claims; the Court has not ruled on them.

DPDP Rules notified; the Act starts coming into force in phases Legislation

The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were notified on 13 November 2025. A commencement notification was published in the Gazette of India the same day. The notification is dated 13 November, although some reports gave the date as 14 November. It brought some sections into force immediately: definitions, the Data Protection Board (Sections 18 to 26), rule-making powers, and Section 44(1) and (3), including the RTI amendment.

The consent-manager provisions start one year later, on 13 November 2026. The core duties of data fiduciaries, such as notice, consent, security safeguards and breach reporting, take effect 18 months after notification, on 13 May 2027. A January 2026 proposal by MeitY to shorten that window to 12 months was widely reported, but we found no amending notification as of October 2026. For the full history of the law, see our timeline of India’s data protection law.

Justice K.S. Puttaswamy dies at 98 Background

Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, the lead petitioner, died at his home in Bengaluru aged 98 (PTI via The Week). He had served as a judge of the Karnataka High Court from 1977 to 1986. He was 86 when he filed the 2012 petition that led to the privacy ruling.

Electoral bonds judgment weighs donor privacy against voters’ right to know Court

A unanimous five-judge bench struck down the electoral bonds scheme (judgment). Relying on Puttaswamy, the Court accepted that information about a person’s political affiliation is protected by informational privacy. It said this could extend to contributions made as a genuine form of political support.

But it held that the anonymous scheme was not the least restrictive way to protect that interest. It also held that voters’ right to information about political funding prevailed in this design. Privacy, in other words, was weighed against another right, not treated as a trump. Background: Electoral bonds: history and Supreme Court ruling.

Digital Personal Data Protection Act becomes law Legislation

Parliament passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act after the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha cleared it in August 2023, and it received Presidential assent on 11 August 2023 (text of the Act; PRS Legislative Research). It sets out the duties of “data fiduciaries” and the rights of “data principals”, and creates a Data Protection Board to enforce them.

Critics have pointed to the wide exemptions the Act allows the government. Supporters say it gives India its first general data-protection law. The Act itself did not commence on assent; it needed a separate notification, which came only in November 2025.

Pegasus order: national security is not a ‘free pass’ Court

A bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli heard petitions alleging that Pegasus spyware had been used against journalists, activists and politicians. The bench appointed an independent technical committee overseen by retired Justice R.V. Raveendran. Citing Puttaswamy, it said the state could not escape judicial review simply by invoking national security (Columbia Global Freedom of Expression).

The order shows how Puttaswamy is used in surveillance cases. It did not declare surveillance illegal; it required the state to justify it. Full story: Pegasus spyware row timeline.

Aadhaar review petitions dismissed 4:1 Court

Petitioners asked the Court to review its 2018 Aadhaar judgment, mainly because the Aadhaar Act had been passed as a Money Bill. The majority, Justices Khanwilkar, Bhushan, Nazeer and Gavai, found no ground for review. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud dissented. He said the petitions should wait for a larger bench to rule on the Money Bill question (Supreme Court Observer).

Parliament rewrites the Aadhaar law after the judgment Legislation

Parliament responded to the 2018 ruling with the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019, which received assent on 23 July 2019 (Gazette of India; PRS Legislative Research). It deleted Section 57, which the Court had struck down to the extent it allowed private use. It allowed banks and telecom companies to accept Aadhaar for KYC only if the customer chose to use it, alongside alternatives such as a passport. It also added offline verification and penalties for misuse of Aadhaar data.

Joseph Shine: adultery is no longer a crime Court

A unanimous bench struck down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 198(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (judgment). Under those provisions, a man could be prosecuted for sex with another man’s wife, but the wife could neither be prosecuted nor bring a complaint herself.

The judges held that the law treated women as their husbands’ property and violated equality and dignity. Several opinions relied on Puttaswamy’s recognition of sexual autonomy and decisional privacy. Adultery can still be a ground for divorce and other civil consequences; the ruling only removed it from criminal law.

Aadhaar judgment upholds the scheme but limits its use Court

The same petition then returned for a ruling on Aadhaar itself (judgment). By 4:1, the Court upheld the Aadhaar Act and its use for welfare subsidies and benefits under Section 7. It also upheld mandatory linking with PAN for income tax.

It struck down the part of Section 57 that let private entities demand Aadhaar on the basis of a contract, and Section 33(2), which allowed disclosure on national-security grounds. It also struck down rules that made Aadhaar compulsory for bank accounts and a Department of Telecommunications circular requiring it for mobile connections. Justice Chandrachud dissented and would have struck down the entire Act.

The case applied the Puttaswamy test of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality to an actual government programme. Aadhaar was not banned; specific uses failed the test.

Navtej Singh Johar: consensual same-sex relations decriminalised Court

A unanimous bench read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code so that it no longer criminalised consensual sexual acts between adults in private (judgment). It overruled Suresh Kumar Koushal (2013).

The judges drew on Puttaswamy, which had described sexual orientation as an essential attribute of privacy and criticised Koushal. They also relied on dignity, equality and freedom of expression. The provision continued to apply to non-consensual acts and to acts involving minors or animals.

Nine judges, one answer: privacy is a fundamental right Court

Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde, R.K. Agrawal, R.F. Nariman, A.M. Sapre, D.Y. Chandrachud, S.K. Kaul and S. Abdul Nazeer unanimously held that the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, and as part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III (judgment).

Justice Chandrachud wrote for himself, the Chief Justice and Justices Agrawal and Nazeer. The other five judges wrote separate concurring opinions. The bench overruled M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh to the extent they said otherwise. Justice Chandrachud’s opinion also described the Emergency-era ADM Jabalpur majority as “seriously flawed” (see the Emergency, 1975–77).

The order said only that privacy is a fundamental right. It did not decide whether Aadhaar was valid; that question went back to a smaller bench.

A five-judge bench sends the question to nine judges Court

A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Khehar decided that only a larger bench could settle the question. M.P. Sharma had been decided by eight judges and Kharak Singh by six. A nine-judge bench was formed and heard arguments from 19 July to 2 August 2017 (Inforrm; Supreme Court Observer).

Three-judge bench refers the privacy question Court

During the Aadhaar hearings, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi argued that Indians had no fundamental right to privacy, relying on M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh. On 11 August 2015 a three-judge bench held that the question had to be settled by a bench of appropriate strength. The same order limited Aadhaar use to the public distribution system and LPG subsidies for the time being (Supreme Court Observer).

Justice K.S. Puttaswamy challenges Aadhaar Background

Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court, filed Writ Petition (Civil) 494 of 2012 challenging the Aadhaar scheme. At that point, the scheme had been launched by executive notification and had no law of Parliament behind it (2018 judgment, cause title). Other petitions were later heard with it. On 23 September 2013 the Court said no one should suffer for not having an Aadhaar number.

Smaller benches recognise privacy anyway Background

Between the 1960s rulings and 2017, two- and three-judge benches repeatedly recognised a right to privacy. In Gobind v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1975) it was derived from Article 21. R. Rajagopal (1994) applied it to publishing a person’s life story. In PUCL v. Union of India (1996) it led to safeguards for telephone tapping. Smaller benches cannot overrule larger ones, so the law remained in tension for decades (Supreme Court Observer).

Kharak Singh: night visits struck down, privacy denied Background

Kharak Singh challenged police surveillance under the UP Police Regulations, including night-time “domiciliary visits” to his home (judgment). The majority struck down the domiciliary visits as a violation of personal liberty under Article 21. It upheld the other surveillance measures, saying the right to privacy was not a guaranteed right. Justice Subba Rao, joined by Justice Shah, dissented and would have treated privacy as part of personal liberty.

Some versions of this timeline date the case to 1961. The judgment was delivered on 18 December 1962 and reported in 1963.

M.P. Sharma: searches and seizures upheld Background

Searches carried out during an investigation into the Dalmia group of companies were challenged under Article 20(3), the protection against self-incrimination (judgment). The eight-judge bench upheld the searches. It noted that the Constitution had no provision like the US Fourth Amendment, and declined to import a fundamental right to privacy by construction.

That observation was later read as denying privacy any constitutional status. In 2017 it was overruled to that extent.