Apar Gupta

Gupta was born and raised in New Delhi, India. He attended Mount St Mary's School, obtained his B.A. (LLB) (Hons) degree from Amity Law School, and a postgraduate degree from the Columbia University School of Law.[2]

Gupta started out as a commercial litigator in the law firm of Karanjawala & Co., later merged his own firm Accendo Law Partners with Advani & Co. in 2010.[3] He was included in the Forbes India 30 under 30 list in 2014.[4] Gupta resigned in 2015 to start his own law chamber[5] where he was a lawyer in notable civil liberties and constitutional cases including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (Section 66A),[6] Subramanium Swamy v. Union of India (criminal defamation),[7] Justice Puttaswamy v. Union of India (Right to Privacy[8] and Aadhaar[9]), PUCL v. Union of India (Surveillance Reforms),[10] and Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (Internet Shutdowns).[11] He has represented the India Chapter of Friday’s for Future when their website was blocked under terrorism charges.[12]

He is a co-founder of the SaveTheInternet.in campaign on net neutrality[13] and SaveOurPrivacy.in campaign for data protection and surveillance reforms.[14] He is the co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) and was appointed its first executive director in 2018.[15] For his work at IFF he has been awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2019[16] and is a Next Now Fellow.[17] Gupta has filed a case as a petitioner against the Ministry of Home Affairs for disclosure of statistical data on surveillance in India.[18] He has deposed before a parliamentary committee on the DNA Bill[19] and before a commission inquiring into the use of Pegasus.[20]

Gupta authored the Commentary on the Information Technology Act which is published by LexisNexis.[21] He writes regularly on digital and democratic rights in leading newspapers and is quoted as an expert in India.[22] Gupta is published in reviewed journals like the Indian Journal of Law and Technology, Seminar and the India International Center Quarterly.[23]