45 offence) is the acquisition of information, which is incompatible with the proportionality test. In other words, Rule 8 assumes that the least onerous means of achieving one of the objective set out in Section 69 of the IT Act is the acquisition of private information which, in itself, run against the extant law on privacy as contained in Puttaswamy (Privacy). b. This is apart from the fact that there is unchecked discretion given to the Competent Authority to determine the standards of necessity, proportionality, collection limitation, fairness, and data minimisation, such that only such amounts of data are intercepted, monitored, or decrypted, as is necessary/required for the limited, specific purpose of the competent authority. This renders the impugned provision and the Rules unconstitutional. XXII. BECAUSE, the principle of necessity was also recognised by the Justice Srikrishna Committee, which clarified that processing of personal data by the State on non-consensual grounds (as in the case of surveillance) must be “strictly confined by necessity” and the “State should not collect personal data more than what is necessary for a legitimate [or stated] purpose”. The Committee thus opined that “any systematic collection of data is to be preceded by an assessment of the extent to which data collection would be proportionate having regard to the legitimate purpose at hand.” It is submitted that these principles of necessity and proportionality in the collection of personal data have been violated by Section 69 of the IT Act and the 2009 IT Rules, in that the Act and Rules, as framed, violate the doctrine of necessity, apart from violating the PUCL