Supreme Court: In the light of the data privacy concerns raised before the Court in the matter relating to Whatsapp data sharing with it’s parent company Facebook, the 5-judge bench of Dipak Misra, CJ and Dr. AK Sikri, Amitava Roy, AM Khanwilkar and MM Shantanagoudar, JJ asked Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Arvind Datar, appearing for Whatsapp and Facebook, to file affidavits with regard to the assertions made by the petitioners within 4 weeks.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta brought to the Court’s notice that a committee headed by Former Supreme Court judge, Justice B N Srikrishna, was being formed to deliberate on a data protection framework for India keeping in mind the need to ensure growth of the digital economy while keeping personal data of citizens secure and protected. He further submitted there was a possibility that the law shall be passed regulating the data protection once the committee submits it’s report. Arvind Datar also submitted that the 9-judge bench, in Justice KS Puttaswamy v. Union of India, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 996, had expressed the view that there should be a law with regard to data protection.
Refusing to pass any interim order restraining the respondent from sharing the data with the third party, the Court said that it will consider passing interim order after the affidavits are filed and if the assertions made in the affidavit would not require any kind of intervention by this Court, this Court may not pass any interim order. The matter will next be taken up on 20.11.2017. [Karmanya Singh Sareen v. Union of India, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 1051, order dated 06.09.2017]