Oppn MPs walk out of panel meet amid uproar over data bill
Seven Opposition members walked out of a meeting of the standing committee on Information Technology and Communications after their demand to see a copy of the Personal Data Protection Bill before a report on it was adopted was not met. The parliamentary panel adopted the 40-page report despite the walkout. The Opposition lawmakers have now submitted a two-page dissent note on the existing draft and their concerns over the bill. The proposed legislation, which seeks to empower people with the right to know what data has been collected, stored and shared, is likely to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament.
New Delhi The Personal Data Protection Bill disrupted proceedings on Wednesday, even before being introduced in Parliament, after seven Opposition members walked out of a meeting of the standing committee on Information Technology and Communications because their demand to see a copy of the bill before a report on it was adopted was not met, HT has learnt. Meanwhile, the parliamentary panel, headed by Jadhav Prataprao Ganpatrao of Shiv Sena (Shinde faction), went ahead and adopted the 40-page report.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and member of the panel Nishikant Dubey told HT, “We have adopted the reports that were part of the agenda of today’s meeting. One was on the functioning of the Central Board of Film Certification, and the other one was on the new Personal Data Protection Bill.”
The Opposition lawmakers who walked out, including Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress, Karti Chidambaram of Congress, and John Brittas of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have now submitted a two page dissent note on the existing draft and their concerns over the bill, according to the people familiar with the matter. In the standing committee meeting, they objected to adopting a report without seeing a copy of the bill.
While neither the report nor the draft of the proposed law are public yet, HT has learnt that, in their dissent note, the MPs highlighted concerns over the draft bill, including how it doesn’t go into the specifics of implementation, “thus leaving lot of power with the executive for to frame rules on important matters related to citizens’ data security.”
“We’ve had only informal discussions and salient features on the new data protection bill. How can we adopt a report on it before we actually see it,’’ said one of the MPs, asking to be named.
The proposed legislation was cleared by cabinet earlier this month and seeks to empower people with the right to know what data has been collected, stored and shared, with the first draft of the law being presented by a special commission close to six years ago before being sent back for painstaking deliberations as the stakeholders sought a balance between ease of compliance and privacy protections.
But the proposed law has been criticised for giving the government excessive leeway in framing rules and protocols outside of the parent legislation. The independence of the regulator too has been of some debate.
“Instead of looking at these concerns, the report which they adopted looked like a self congratulatory report and we don’t know who has prepared it,” another Opposition MP, requesting anonymity, said after the hour-long meeting.
The legislation is likely to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament.
