Puttaswamy Asked for a Law First. Ikshana, AjnaLens and Abhigyan Never Got One.

The First Question Puttaswamy Asks Is the One This Case Fails K.S. Puttaswamy

(2017) did not just declare privacy a fundamental right - it built a specific three-step test for any state action that infringes it: the action must be backed by law, it must pursue a legitimate state aim and it must be proportionate to that aim. Courts usually spend their time on the second and third prongs, debating whether surveillance was "necessary" or "excessive." This case barely gets there, because the petition's central claim is that it fails the very first prong: no statute anywhere authorises the Delhi Police to deploy the "Ikshana" vehicle, "AjnaLens" smart spectacles or NCRB's "Abhigyan" app to scan and match the faces of people attending a lawful protest.

Why "No Law" Is a Different, Bigger Problem Than "Bad Law"

Most privacy litigation in India argues that a specific law goes too far - that a particular surveillance statute fails the proportionality test. This case argues something structurally more serious: that there is no statute to even evaluate.

The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 authorises biometric collection from arrested or convicted persons - not from peaceful protesters who have committed no offence. When the state acts through unlegislated technological capability rather than through a law Parliament actually passed, courts cannot ask "was this proportionate," because Puttaswamy's first prong was never satisfied in the first place.

The case doesn't reach the harder proportionality question at all.

The DPDP Act's Role Is Narrower Than It Sounds

The petition also invokes the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 - but its relevance here is limited to the third-party hosting angle, not the surveillance itself. The DPDP Act regulates how personal data, once lawfully collected, must be processed and secured; it does not itself authorise or prohibit facial recognition deployment by police.

That means even if the DPDP Act's data-fiduciary obligations were fully complied with, the core legality problem - surveillance with no enabling statute at all - would remain untouched. Conflating the two, as public discussion of this case often does, understates how narrow the government's defence actually is here.

Why This Case Outlasts the NEET Protests The

NEET-UG paper leak protests will eventually end; the technological capability deployed against them will not. Ikshana, AjnaLens and Abhigyan were built for future use regardless of this case's outcome. What the Court decides here is not really about one protest - it is whether "the technology exists and works" is a sufficient constitutional basis for its use or whether Puttaswamy's demand for prior legislative authorisation applies with full force to facial recognition specifically.

That answer will govern every future protest this technology touches.