India: Constitutional & Administrative Law

The recent spate of inspections and raids conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) across Maharashtra has triggered a wider debate on the balance between regulatory enforcement and procedural fairness. Several prominent restaurants, hotels and food establishments found themselves facing suspension orders, stop-business notices and threats of closure allegedly on account of hygiene discrepancies and alleged violations of food safety norms.

On May 29, 2026, the Delhi High Court delivered a landmark judgment in a batch of petitions that raised the same question, that stood at the intersection of constitutional law and the digital age viz. whether an individual whose name appears in judicial records that are accessible through internet search engines is entitled, by virtue of the right to informational privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, to seek de-indexing of those records from name-based search results and masking of personal identifiers (including names) from publicly accessible digital versions of those records.

In Puja Hari v. State of West Bengal & Anr., 2026:CHC-AS:897 and Piyush Sharma v. State of West Bengal & Anr., CRR 4389 of 2025, the Calcutta High Court delivered two significant judgments explaining the scope and safeguards governing attachment of property under Section 107 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 ("BNSS").