12 October, 2025

I, Phone

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”

– Alan Turing

I. INTRODUCTION

  1. The new Direct Tax Code, 2025, allows tax officers to access a taxpayer’s “computer system” during a search, which is defined to include remote servers, cloud servers, and virtual digital spaces. If a password or access code is not provided, officers can "override" it to gain access.
  2. The “virtual digital space” includes a wide range of digital environments including email servers, social media accounts, online banking and trading accounts, cloud storage platforms, digital application platforms etc.
  3. The said powers, in their current form, fail to recognize that in the modern era, a mobile phone is not merely an object or tool, but an extension of the person – integral to livelihood, identity, communication, privacy, and access to justice.
  4. Multiple investigating authorities – including but not limited to the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate, and Police Authorities – now routinely seize mobile phones, laptops, and storage devices during searches and surveys.
  5. While such powers may have been conceived as mere procedural tools, in practice, the seizure of a person’s phone today is equivalent to seizing the person himself, or worse.
  6. A person deprived of his phone in the 21st century is stripped not only of communication but of his ability to transact, identify himself, access his finances, run his business, and even defend himself legally.
  7. The consequences of such seizure are not temporary inconveniences but existential disruptions that strike at the heart of Article 19(1)(a), Article 19(1)(g), and Article 21 of the Constitution.

II. THE PHONE AS AN EXTENSION OF SELF

  1. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), recognized that the right to privacy is intrinsic to life and liberty under Article 21, and extends to informational privacy. Today, that informational privacy is materially embodied in the smartphone, which stores the intimate digital self of every citizen – communications, photographs, health data, bank accounts, professional records, social interactions, and behavioural patterns.
  2. The dependence on mobile phones is not a matter of luxury or convenience.
    1. Businesses are run entirely on mobile applications – banking, accounting, client communication, and commerce.
    2. Government services such as Aadhaar, PAN, DigiLocker, and GST compliance are mobile-linked.
    3. Bank accounts and payment gateways (UPI, net banking) require phone-based authentication.
    4. Social media and messaging platforms are the principal channels for professional engagement and public expression.
  1. A recent Supreme Court judgment has already recognized that access to the Internet is a right and necessity in the modern age, not a privilege (Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020)).
  2. In a country where legal tender itself can be demonetized suddenly overnight, the ability to communicate, transact and adapt through the phone becomes vital for survival.
  3. Therefore, the phone today is not a mere communication device. It is an instrument of livelihood, an identity token, and an economic engine.
  4. Empirical surveys confirm that more than 70% of Indian MSMEs depend on smartphones for day-to-day operations. Women entrepreneurs in rural areas report 80% mobile-first dependence. Entire informal sectors – delivery, retail, logistics, and service providers – operate solely through mobile applications.
  5. The economy of small traders, gig workers, digital marketers, influencers, and local service providers operates exclusively through mobile devices. Seizure of such devices not only cripples the individual but destabilizes economic micro-units that rely on continuous phone access.

III. SEIZURE EQUALS VIOLATION OF SELF

  1. The act of seizing a smartphone is not akin to seizing a book or a file. It is akin to seizing the mind and memory of the individual. The data within represents thoughts, correspondences, and intentions. Extracting it without consent violates the principle that no person shall be compelled to make an involuntary statement against himself, protected under Article 20(3).
  2. The argument that “the phone is merely property” ignores technological and social reality. When a phone holds one’s identity, bank access, and private communications, its seizure becomes an intrusion into the self.
  3. The seizure of phones has a chilling effect on:
    1. Freedom of speech and expression (Article 19(1)(a)), as individuals become fearful of their private communications being accessed.
    2. Freedom to practice any profession or carry on trade (Article 19(1)(g)), as businesses lose functionality upon phone seizure.
    3. Personal liberty (Article 21), as the deprivation of a phone amounts to a deprivation of autonomy and informational control.
  1. The Direct Tax Code, 2025, provides no meaningful procedural safeguards – no clear time limits, no data minimization principles, and no protection against fishing expeditions into unrelated digital material.
  2. The result is a structural imbalance: the State gains access to the totality of a person’s digital being, while the person loses his ability to function, communicate, or defend himself.
  3. The relationship between man and machine has evolved to the point where the boundary is indistinct. The phone acts as the human’s external brain – a memory, diary, and financial control system combined.
  4. Popular culture reflects this symbiosis. The film Khel Khel Mein (starring Akshay Kumar) dramatizes how the entirety of a person’s secrets, social identity, and reputation exist within his phone – and how loss of it destabilizes the self.
  5. Therefore, in both law and lived experience, the phone is not separable from personhood.

IV. RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN LEGAL PROCESS

  1. It is a settled principle of law that an individual has the right to join proceedings against him, to consult counsel, and to present his defence.
  2. Today, such participation frequently requires online access – for video hearings, document submissions, OTP-based verifications, communication with counsel, or even simply appearing before the court.
  3. Depriving an individual of his phone during investigation directly impairs this right to effective legal representation, violating principles of natural justice.

V. PRAYER

  1. The provisions of the Direct Tax Code, 2025, and other statutes that permit seizure of digital devices and extraction of personal data be read down to require:
    1. Prior judicial authorization;
    2. Proportionality and necessity tests;
    3. Time-bound custody limits; and
    4. Independent oversight mechanisms.
  1. It be declared that a mobile phone constitutes an extension of the self within the meaning of Article 21 of the Constitution, attracting the highest standard of privacy protection.
  2. It be further declared that seizure or access to mobile data amounts, in appropriate circumstances, to compulsion of self-incrimination under Article 20(3).
  3. The State be directed to frame comprehensive guidelines governing digital device seizures, including data protection, return timelines, and business-continuity safeguards.

VI. CONCLUSION

In an age when the phone embodies identity, livelihood, and thought, to seize it is to paralyze the person. To access its contents is to trespass upon the mind. A law that allows such acts without proportionate safeguards violates the constitutional promise of dignity, privacy, and liberty.

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