Indian media groups tell Supreme Court privacy law risks newsroom shutdowns
Twenty-one publishers, including outlets owned by Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, say consent rules for journalists amount to pre-censorship.
Some of India's largest news publishers told the Supreme Court on Tuesday (Oct 27) that the government's privacy law amounts to pre-censorship and could force newsrooms to close. The law would require journalists to get consent from the people they write about. The Straits Times and CNA reported the hearing, both carrying Reuters copy.
Twenty-one news publishers have brought the challenge, among them companies owned by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. Both outlets called it the most high-profile challenge to the legislation so far. Until now, only free speech activists and a group of smaller news outlets had taken the law on.
"It is changing the whole concept of what is news," Madhavi Goradia Divan, the lawyer for the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), told the judges. "Newsrooms will shut down if we have to ask for permission," Divan said, describing the result as "a complete regime of pre-censorship".
Divan also told the court that earlier versions of the law had excluded journalists. The final version did not.
The DNPA's members include Ambani's Network18, Adani's NDTV, the Indian Express and Times Internet. Times Internet is part of the Times of India group, which publishes India's largest-selling English-language daily.
The case comes amid accusations that press freedom in India has declined since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Critics say many mainstream media outlets have not done enough to scrutinise his government. The government has denied this and says it respects press freedom.
According to Reuters, which first reported the challenge on Monday, the publishers argue the law would trample on investigative work and allow New Delhi to identify journalists' sources. They also say it could force publishers to erase stories and would give the government power to demand information from them that could expose reporters' sources.
In a filing earlier in October, the publishers said they had received assurances at an August meeting with the government that the law would protect press freedom. They said the lack of a written carve-out for journalists, of the kind that exists in the European Union, Singapore and Britain, was alarming.
The publishers want most of the law's contentious provisions quashed. Those provisions take effect from May 2027.
Sources: The Straits Times, Indian media groups challenge Modi’s privacy law in court, say newsrooms face shutdown risk; CNA, Indian media groups decry Modi’s privacy law in court, say newsrooms face shutdown risk.
