"Fundamental rights are increasingly being applied horizontally against private actors." Discuss with examples.

Fundamental rights were designed as shields against the "State" under Art. 12. This is a vertical relationship between citizen and State. Horizontal application extends these rights to private employers, institutions and individuals. Private power over jobs, education and data keeps growing, and this extension is now clearly visible, though it remains uneven.

Rights that bind private actors under the Constitution itself

• Art. 15(2) bars exclusion from shops and public places, Art. 17 abolishes untouchability, and Arts. 23–24 ban forced and child labour. All of these bind private persons too [1].
• Parliament gave them force through the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

Judges extending rights to private actors

• Kaushal Kishor v. State of UP (2023): a Constitution Bench, by a 4:1 majority, held that Arts. 19 and 21 can be enforced against non-State actors [2].
• Vishaka (1997): the Court's sexual-harassment guidelines bound private employers. Parliament later turned them into the POSH Act, 2013.
• Madras HC (Madurai Bench), October 2026: while disposing of a PIL, the court barred private educational institutions and employers in Tamil Nadu from mandatorily collecting caste details unless a statute requires it. The aim was to stop bias at the screening stage [3].

Privacy duties for private data processors

• Puttaswamy (2017) recognised privacy under Art. 21. The DPDP Act, 2023 now places duties on private Data Fiduciaries, the bodies that decide how personal data is used [4].
• The DPDP Rules, 2025, notified on 14 November 2025, gave effect to consent and purpose limitation [5].

Concerns

• Doctrinal uncertainty: the dissent in Kaushal Kishor warned against enforcing Arts. 19 and 21 directly against private persons through writs [2].
• Weak enforcement: the Madras HC disposed of the PIL without naming any enforcing authority. Applicants who see an unlawful form risk losing the seat or job if they complain [3].
• Patchy coverage: the Madras HC direction applies only in Tamil Nadu. India has no central law on caste bias in private hiring, even though it ratified ILO Convention No. 111 in 1960 [6].

Rights are now reaching private actors through the Constitution's text, court rulings and statutes like the DPDP Act. To make this predictable, Parliament should codify these duties instead of leaving them to case-by-case court directions. That means a central anti-discrimination law, in line with the national equal-opportunity policy that C111 requires [6], and clear DPDP guidance on caste data. This would carry the Preamble's promise of dignity and fraternity into the private sphere.