CONSTITUTIONAL SILENCE ON DATA PROTECTION: A POST-PUTTASWAMY ANALYSIS

Abstract The unanimous consensus on recognition of the right to privacy as a fundamental right in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India marks a decisive shift in the evolution of Indian constitutional law. By advocating privacy within the guarantees of Part III the Fundamental Rights, the Supreme Court decisively repudiated earlier doctrinal uncertainty and affirmed individual autonomy as constitutional value. Yet, notwithstanding this doctrinal shift, the Constitution of India remains textually silent on data protection as an independent constitutional guarantee. This disjunction between judicial recognition and constitutional text raises foundational questions about the extent, durability, scope, and enforceability of informational privacy in an increasingly digitized polity. This paper analyses whether such constitutional silence on data protection can be normatively sustained in an era marked by algorithmic governance, pervasive data extraction, and the expanding role of the State as both regulator and processor of personal information. With a combination of doctrinal analysis, constitutional theory, and comparative constitutional methodology, the paper evaluates the extent to which judicial interpretation can function as an substitute for explicit constitutional entrenchment. The paper traces the fragmented evolution of privacy jurisprudence prior to Puttaswamy, examines the conceptual foundations of informational privacy and proportionality articulated by the Court, and analyses the post-Puttaswamy legal landscape, including judicial application of the proportionality standard and the enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Based on comparative constitutional experiences in the European Union, South Africa, and Brazil, this paper demonstrates that countries confronting similar technological changes have increasingly chosen to provide explicit constitutional or quasi-constitutional protection to data rights. In light of this, t...