PRIVACY AGAINST TRANSPARENCY: ENFORCEMENT CHALLENGES AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE DIGITAL PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION ACT, 2023 AND THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT, 2005

The enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) marks a defining moment in Indian information governance. Yet the statute’s most consequential provision — Section 44(3), which amends Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) — has received insufficient scholarly scrutiny. By substituting a nuanced, proportionality-driven public interest override with an unqualified reference to ‘personal data’, the legislature has created a conflict of constitutional and institutional magnitude. This article examines the doctrinal foundations of both the right to information and the right to privacy as co-equal fundamental rights under the Indian Constitution, analyses the specific legislative and institutional conflicts generated by the DPDP-RTI interface, and draws on comparative frameworks from the European Union, the United Kingdom, and South Africa to advance a case for a harmonised privacy-transparency framework. The article concludes that Section 44(3) fails the proportionality test articulated in Justice K S Puttaswamy v Union of India and proposes legislative, institutional, and interpretive reforms necessary to restore constitutional coherence.

Keywords: Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023; Right to Information Act 2005; Section 44(3); privacy; transparency; proportionality; Data Protection Board of India; Central Information Commission; GDPR; constitutional law.