JPC adopts Personal Data Protection Bill; Congress, TMC MPs pen dissenting notes

Gearing for a dramatic Parliament session, the Joint Parliamentary Commission  (JPC) on Monday, adopted the draft to the Personal Data Protection Bill. Several Congress MPs - Manish Tewari, Jairam Ramesh penned dissenting notes to the law objecting to government's powers to intrude in privacy, lack of adequate safeguards etc. Hailing the 'best spirit of parliamentary democracy', Ramesh claimed that JPC had functioned successfully and must be done more often. The bill will be tabled in the coming session,

JPC adopts draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019

Apart from Ramesh, Tewari too penned a dissenting note stating that the fundamental design of the proposed legislation would not stand the test of law. Similar notes of dissent were penned by TMC MPs - Derek O'Brien and Mahua Moitra objecting to clauses that exempted any govt agency from application of the act. BJD's Amar Patnaik has also submitted a dissent note on the bill. The report on the bill was delayed by the panel as its former chairperson Meenakshi Lekhi was elevated as a minister and a new chairperson P P Chaudhary was appointed.

As per reports, five members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill were inducted into the Union Council of Ministers -  Chairperson Meenakshi Lekhi, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Ajay Bhatt and Bhupender Yadav. While Lekhi has taken charge as MoS External Affairs, Chandrashekar as MoS Electronics & I-T, Bhatt as MoS Defence and Tourism, the other two ministers- Yadav & Vaishnaw have taken charge as Union Minister of Railways and Environment respectively. As per Parliamentary rules, a minister cannot hold membership or chairmanship of parliamentary committees, necessitating the JPC to be reshuffled. The committee has since then held several meetings with Twitter, Facebook, and other data companies' officials.

What is Personal Data Protection Bill? 

The Bill aims to lay down a framework for the processing of personal and private data by public and private entities, allowing exemptions for certain kinds of data processing, such as processing in the interest of national security, for legal proceedings, or for journalistic purposes. It also has a data-localization clause, which states that certain critical personal data must be stored solely within the country and also calls for national-level Data Protection Authority (DPA) to be set up. The Bill which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2019 was recommended to a Joint Parliamentary committee.