New Delhi: There was high drama at a meeting of the parliamentary panel on information technology Wednesday after several opposition MPs walked out, protesting a bid by BJP members to adopt a report on the draft data protection law even before it’s been tabled in Parliament, ThePrint has learnt.
The 31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, headed by Shiv Sena MP Prataprao Jadhav and comprising 10 BJP MPs, however adopted the report after the walkout.
The Union cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had cleared the draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2023 on 5 July.
Once the cabinet approves a bill, it is tabled in Parliament. According to parliamentary procedure, a bill can be referred to a standing committee for scrutiny only after it has been introduced in either of the two houses of Parliament — the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha.
Parliamentary sources told ThePrint that the Opposition MPs who walked out included the Congress’s Karti Chidambaram, Mahua Moitra and Jawhar Sircar of the Trinamool Congress, John Brittas of the CPI(M). Brittas, it is learnt, called the move “unprecedented” and said that it is unheard of in parliamentary procedure that a house panel passes a report on a bill that has not been introduced in either Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha.
An Opposition MP who was present in the meeting said that soon after it started, BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey and Anil Agarwal demanded that the standing committee adopt the report on the DPDP bill, prepared on the basis of discussions with officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
“This met with vehement protests from the Opposition MPs, who questioned the move as neither has the bill been introduced in Parliament, nor have the (panel) members got a chance to examine it,” the MP, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint.
When contacted, Dubey said he would not be able to comment on the matter at the moment. This report will be updated when he responds.
IT panel chairman Prataprao Jadhav however told ThePrint that Opposition MPs are unnecessarily making it a political issue. “The IT ministry had put the draft data privacy law in public domain to invite suggestions in November last year. As the parliamentary panel on IT, we decided to discuss the draft law. We have had two meetings with officials of the IT ministry on the salient features of the draft bill. Based on the meetings and our discussions we have prepared a report. What is wrong about it?”
He further said that the Opposition members should have aired their objections when the discussion with IT ministry officials were being held.
The data protection bill, which proposes a hefty penalty of up to Rs 500 crore for violating its provisions and also eases rules on cross-border data flows, among other things, has been in the works for around six years.
The first draft of the bill was presented by an expert panel headed by former Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna in July 2018, after a year-long consultation process. The first draft was revised and tabled in Parliament in December 2019.
However, it was soon referred to a joint parliamentary committee, which submitted its report in December 2021.
The ministry withdrew the bill from Parliament in August last year and stated that a new one would be presented, which fit into the “comprehensive legal framework”. The draft bill approved by the Cabinet on 5 July narrows down the scope of the data protection regime to personal data protection.
Also read: Grievance redressal board, Rs 500 cr fine, key features of new personal data protection draft bill
‘Report just praises draft law prepared by IT ministry’
A second Opposition MP told ThePrint that what transpired in Wednesday’s meeting is “unheard of” in parliamentary history. “In the absence of a final bill or any reference by the Speaker, how can we pass the report, which has been made by the IT ministry and pressed on the committee?” the MP further said.
The MP added that Opposition members demanded postponement to examine the latest version of the draft data privacy bill that was approved by the cabinet as it has gone through several changes.
Asked how the committee prepared a report on the draft bill in the first place when it had not yet been introduced in Parliament or referred to it, the Opposition MP said that the committee had decided to discuss the bill after the IT ministry readied the draft last November, and put it in the public domain for consultations.
“IT ministry officials had made several presentations on the salient points of the draft law before the parliamentary panel. The chairman said that the report was prepared following discussions and presentations. But nothing was circulated to us till yesterday evening,” the second MP said Wednesday.
The MP added that the draft report circulated to members of the IT panel has not examined the draft bill clause by clause, going against norms. “It just praises the draft law prepared by the IT ministry.”
Brittas, the second MP said, has also submitted a dissent note on the draft report.
A third MP who attended the meeting said Brittas told the committee chairman that passing a report without even examining the bill will have far-reaching consequences. “Brittas said he does not want a slur on a parliamentary committee if it passes a report without knowing what is there in the bill.”
The second MP, quoted earlier, said that TMC’s Jawhar Sircar raised the issue of how, in the last version of the bill, the government had “destroyed” the watchdog body called the Data Protection Board.
“The board was packed with its own men rather than judicial and independent persons. Sircar also objected to the temporary consent given to data fiduciaries to use personal data and share with others without the individual’s consent,” the MP said.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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