The Madhya Pradesh High Court has redirected a public interest litigation challenging Meta's plan to strip end-to-end encryption from Instagram's messaging service, effective May 8, 2026, ordering the petitioner to first knock on the Data Protection Board of India's door before the judiciary intervenes. The Indore bench's directive carries urgent weight: with the encryption rollback weeks away, the clock is ticking for a statutory remedy.
Advocate Parth Sharma filed the PIL before the Indore bench contending that Instagram's announced withdrawal of end-to-end encrypted messaging strikes at the heart of Article 21 of the Constitution, the fundamental right to privacy. Sharma's plea warns that dismantling this encryption layer would expose private communications to potential surveillance, creating a chilling effect on free expression and leaving millions of Indian users digitally vulnerable. The Centre, represented by Additional Solicitor General Sunil Kumar Jain, pushed back on two fronts: the matter fell outside the proper scope of PIL jurisdiction, and critically, the petitioner had bypassed the very statutory mechanism Parliament created for such grievances, the Data Protection Board of India, established under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, without exhausting that remedy first.
A division bench of Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla and Justice Alok Awasthi found the Centre's jurisdictional objection persuasive, signaling that the DPDP Act's institutional framework must be engaged before constitutional courts step in. The bench underscored that the Board exists precisely to adjudicate disputes of this character, and that bypassing it would undermine the legislative architecture Parliament deliberately constructed. Crucially, the Court did not dismiss the underlying privacy concern, instead building in tight timelines that preserve urgency, it ordered the petitioner to approach the Board under Section 18 of the DPDP Act, 2023 within seven days, and directed that if such a representation is filed, "the Board shall take a decision, in accordance with law, by passing a reasoned and speaking order, after affording the petitioner an opportunity of hearing within the next 15 days before May 6."
The matter returns before the bench on May 6, when the Board's response must be placed on record.
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