NEW DELHI, May 8 -- Next week, the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant will start hearing arguments for and against India's first-ever data privacy law. After five separate public interest litigation petitions filed in February challenged the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, these hearings starting 13 May could determine the future of what companies and government bodies can do with the personal data of 1.4 billion people.

Both the Centre and the litigators have deployed batteries of top lawyers. Court proceeding records accessed by Mint showed 38 lawyers representing those who filed the public interest litigation (PILs), including two of India's senior-most advocates-member of Parliament Abhishek Manu S...