Ensure Newslaundry's Data Is Not Leaked: Delhi High Court Tells Income Tax Department Following Survey & Seizure

The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Income Tax Department to seek instructions on a petition filed by news portal Newslaundry and it's CEO Abhinandan Sekhri, apprehending leakage of the data seized during a recent IT survey in their office.

In the plea filed through Advocate Nipun Katyal, it has been stated by the petitioners that they apprehend their private data, having no incriminating or relevant material for the purposes of Income Tax or any other legal proceedings, may be misused, leaked or illegally released in public domain.

"This apprehension is well founded since the Respondent did not give the hash value of the data after seizing it (which they were not entitled to do in a survey under Section 133A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ). Therefore, the Petitioners humbly submit, it is most imperative that this Hon'ble Court safeguards and preserves the right of privacy of the Petitioners and further prevents the Respondent from causing deliberate harassment by conducting repeated searches and surveys," the plea reads.

Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla granted time to the Income Tax Department to seek instructions while posting the matter for further hearing on September 21.

"Normally, nobody's data should be leaked. It's contrary to public interest. It's ethically and morally wrong," the Court remarked at the outset.

The bench also orally asked the IT Department to take necessary precaution to see that the data is not leaked. 

Expressing a fear of the private data being released in public domain, the plea further submits that while the IT department officials asked Newslaundry's CEO, Abhinandan Sekhri to delete personal data from the electronic devices within an hour, it was impossible to do so due to two reasons, firstly, to find out the relevant personal data in the electronic devices; and secondly to delete 190 GB of data in 1 hour. 

"This exercise at least takes 3 days. It is apposite to mention that filtering out the relevant data for the purpose of Income Tax was the job of the Officials of the Respondent Authority, rather than the Petitioners," the plea submits.

The plea also states that the IT officials did not give any reason to the petitioners for impounding of other irrelevant documents.

"Petitioners are into investigative journalism, the electronic devices contains sensitive journalistic data and personal data of the Petitioner No. 2. It is most humbly submitted that, if the said data is leaked, it will be an extreme breach of privacy and it will cause irreparable loss to the Petitioners," the plea reads further.

Surveys were conducted by IT Department officials at the premises of Newslaundry's office on September 10.