Examine the doctrine of proportionality as applied to state requisition of digital/electronic data in criminal investigations.

Proportionality demands that any State action restricting a fundamental right be backed by law, pursue a legitimate aim, adopt the least intrusive means, and maintain a balance between the aim and the rights infringed — the four-fold test laid down in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), which read privacy into Article 21 [1]. Requisitioning a person's electronic footprint squarely engages each limb.

Statutory basis: the legality limb

• Section 69, IT Act, 2000 permits interception, monitoring or decryption only on specified grounds such as sovereignty, public order or prevention of a cognisable offence [2].
• Police may summon electronic records from intermediaries under criminal procedure law, but the power is one of relevance to the offence under investigation, not open-ended access.
• The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 creates individual rights over personal data while exempting notified State agencies — leaving requisition largely court-supervised rather than statute-supervised [3].

Where the test bites: necessity and nexus

• Digital data is aggregative — IP logs, device/IMEI particulars and location history reveal movement, associations and sources, far exceeding the evidentiary need of a minor offence.
• In September 2026 the Supreme Court asked the U.P. Police why the entire digital footprint of journalist Abhishek Upadhyay was sought from X in a road-rage FIR, directing the Ghaziabad Police Commissioner to file an affidavit [4]. Data was sought for a period predating the alleged incident, exposing a nexus failure.
• Such trawling carries a chilling effect on Article 19(1)(a), since exposure of confidential sources deters investigative reporting.

Balancing safeguards

• Narrow, time-bounded and offence-specific requests; recorded reasons; and judicial or independent oversight, as urged by the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee (2018), which flagged the absence of surveillance-law reform [5].

Proportionality thus converts investigative discretion into a reasoned, reviewable exercise. Strengthening it through statutory safeguards and prompt judicial scrutiny would let the State investigate effectively while protecting privacy and a free press — the constitutional balance Puttaswamy envisaged.