Supreme Court quashes police notice to X for a journalist's account data as ‘overkill’

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The news

New Delhi. On 14 October a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi quashed a notice that Ghaziabad police had sent to X seeking about three months of the journalist's account data from before the incident: login IPs, email, IMEI and registration logs (Abhishek Upadhyay v. State of UP, per LiveLaw). The court held that no personal information for the period before the incident could be sought; even after the FIR, such data may be asked for only if other means of tracing or arresting the accused are inadequate; and anything already obtained ‘shall not be utilized against the petitioner’. Justice Bagchi called the demand ‘an overkill’. The report does not name the provision used.

Prelims nuggets

Section 94 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 lets a court or officer in charge of a police station summon production of a document, electronic communication or device; it replaces section 91 CrPC.
Under the IT Act, 2000, section 69 permits interception, monitoring or decryption of information on the direction of the Central or a State Government (or its specially authorised officer); section 69A permits the Central Government to block public access. Both are executive, not judicial, orders.
K.S. Puttaswamy (2017): a State intrusion into privacy must have a legal basis, a legitimate aim and be proportionate to it.