India, May 25 -- Five separate public interest challenges to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act now await the attention of a five-judge bench at the Supreme Court. Their resolution will decide whether democracy is to deepen and become truly an enterprise between citizens and administration or drifts the populace into suppression.

The petitioners argue that under the guise of protecting privacy, the people's right to access information is being deliberately and unreasonably weakened. For one, a "data fiduciary" - any government, corporation, hospital, university or news organisation - that has collected personal information can now hold it close. That is a separate concern.

The disquiet is over Section 44(3). It allows gover...