Indian media groups decry Modi’s privacy law in court, warn of newsroom shutdowns
Indian media groups on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the government’s privacy law, which would require journalists to seek consent from people they write about, amounted to pre-censorship and could force newsrooms to shut down.
The lawsuit marks the most high-profile challenge to the legislation amid accusations of declining press freedom in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Critics say many mainstream media outlets have not done enough to scrutinise Modi’s government, which has denied the allegations and said it respects press freedom.
A group of 21 news publishers, including companies owned by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, has challenged the law, arguing that it would undermine investigative journalism and allow the government to identify journalists’ sources, Reuters reported on Monday.
“It is changing the whole concept of what is news,” Madhavi Goradia Divan, lawyer for the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), told the judges.
“Newsrooms will shut down, if we have to ask for permission…it’s then a complete regime of pre-censorship,” she said.
The case is the most prominent legal challenge to Modi’s privacy law so far. Previously, only free speech activists and a group of smaller news outlets had challenged the legislation. The Supreme Court scheduled the case for hearing next month.
Media companies received assurances at an August meeting with the government that the law would protect press freedom. However, publishers said in a filing earlier this month that the absence of a written exemption for journalists was alarming, noting that the European Union, Singapore and Britain have such provisions.
The publishers are seeking to have most of the law’s contentious provisions struck down before they take effect in May 2027. They argue that the legislation could force publishers to delete stories and empower the government to demand information that could expose journalists’ sources.
The DNPA, which is leading the challenge, counts among its members Ambani’s Network18, Adani’s NDTV and other major media organisations, including the Indian Express and Times Internet, part of the Times of India group, publisher of India’s largest-selling English-language daily.
Divan told the court that earlier versions of the law exempted journalists, but the final version did not.
Credit: Reuters
