As per a report by Bar & Bench, the Supreme Court on October 27 sought responses from the Union government and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on a writ petition by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and another, Digital News Publishers Association & Anr v. Union of India & Anr, challenging the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The association represents 21 digital news publishers, which Bar & Bench reports include companies owned by the Ambani and Adani groups. Counsel for the publishers told the Court that the absence of a journalistic exemption amounts to pre-censorship of the press and could have serious consequences for news reporting.

The News Minute reports that the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana issued notice on the petition and on an application for stay; no ruling on the stay was reported. Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan, appearing for the publishers, is quoted as saying that "newsrooms will shut down if we have to ask for permission." The News Minute says the petition also objects to consent requirements, broad state powers to demand information and block access, and erasure provisions without public-interest safeguards, and that the DNPA says it received only a verbal assurance in August that journalism would fall outside the Act. The provisions at issue take effect from May 2027, according to the outlet. Neither report cites section numbers, so this brief does not either. Divan noted that other petitions challenging the amendment to the Right to Information Act are already pending, and The News Minute describes this as the first comprehensive challenge on the ground of its impact on journalism.