Ambani and Adani outlets among 21 Indian publishers challenging Modi's privacy law

Twenty-one Indian news publishers, including companies owned by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, have challenged India’s privacy law in court, arguing it would trample investigative work and let New Delhi identify journalists’ sources, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. (Reuters)

The challenge was filed by India’s Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) at the Supreme Court on 6 October and is due to be heard on Tuesday, Reuters reported on Monday, reporting the lawsuit for the first time. It is the most high-profile challenge to the law so far; until now only free speech activists and a group of smaller news outlets had challenged it.

The publishers are demanding that most of the law’s contentious provisions, which take effect from May 2027, be quashed. They argue a journalist could be forced to get prior consent from a person they want to investigate, which the association says “would allow that subject to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses”, and that people withdrawing consent at any time and demanding erasure, without a public-interest safeguard, could force publishers to unpublish or heavily redact factual reports.

The filing also warns that powers letting New Delhi order any organisation handling personal data “to furnish such information as it may call for” from next year could expose reporters’ sources and deter whistleblowers. The law would “render investigative journalism a benign and neutered recorder of events”, the 698-page filing said, calling the provisions “pre-censorship which is anathema to any democracy worth its name”.

DNPA members include Ambani’s Network18, which has seven digital news platforms, Adani’s NDTV, the Indian Express and Times Internet. The challenge is unusual, Reuters noted, because opposition parties allege Ambani and Adani are close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and receive favourable treatment — charges the businesses and the government vehemently deny. The association and the media groups did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, nor did India’s information technology ministry.

The publishers say media outlets received assurances at an August meeting with the government that the law would protect press freedom, but the absence of a written carve-out for journalists, as in the European Union, Singapore and Britain, remains alarming. Modi’s government announced implementation of the law last year to protect users’ digital personal data, raising compliance requirements for platforms such as Meta and Google, and says it respects press freedom.

Sources

• Reuters: “Ambani, Adani outlets among Indian publishers contesting Modi’s privacy law” — https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ambani-adani-outlets-among-indian-publishers-contesting-modis-privacy-law-2026-10-26/