Members of Congress, BJD and Trinamool Congress disagreed after the Joint Committee of Parliament on Personal Data Protection Bill accepted the committee’s report in its meeting here on Monday. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said he was forced to submit a detailed dissent note on the bill as his suggestions were not accepted and he was unable to convince the panel members. From TMC, MPs Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra presented a dissenting note, alleging that the bill lacks adequate safeguards to protect the right to privacy of data principles.
Other Congress MPs who have submitted dissent notes include Manish Tewari, Gaurav Gogoi and Vivek Tankha. BJD’s Amar Patnaik has also submitted a dissent note on the bill. The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 was referred to a Joint Committee of Parliament (JCP) for examination before it is considered and passed by the Parliament. The report on the bill by the panel was delayed as its former chairman Meenakshi Lekhi was promoted as a minister and a new chairman of the committee was appointed.
Former Union Minister Ramesh lauded the democratic working of the committee under the chairmanship of PP Choudhary for the last four months. “Finally, it is done. The Joint Committee of Parliament has adopted its report on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. There are dissenting notes, but it is in the best spirit of parliamentary democracy. Sadly, under the Modi regime such Examples are few and far between.
The Congress leader said that he was compelled to submit the note as his suggestions were not accepted and he was unable to convince the members. “But this should not detract from the democratic way in which the committee has worked. Now, for debate in Parliament,” he said on Twitter. Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs, who are part of the panel, termed the bill as “Orwellian” in nature and questioned the functioning of the committee.
Sources said that in the dissent note filed with Choudhary, he has alleged that the committee complied with its order and did not provide adequate time and opportunity for consultation with stakeholders. O’Brien and Moitra also said that many meetings took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it difficult for people from outside Delhi to attend. Sources said the lawmakers also said they oppose the bill for the lack of adequate safeguards to protect the right to privacy of data principles. The two MPs in the note also opposed the committee’s recommendations to include non-personal data within the proposed law, he said.
Ramesh, who is also the Congress’s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, said in his dissent note that he had suggested amendments to Section 35, which is the most important provision of the Bill as well as Section 12. They have argued that Section 35 gives an almost unbridled authority to the Central Government to exempt any government agency from the entire Act itself. “Under the amendment I suggested, the central government would have to seek parliamentary approval to exempt any of its agencies from the purview of the law. Nevertheless, the government should always follow the requirement of the bill for fair and proper processing and implementing necessary safeguards,” Ramesh said.
“This would bring in greater accountability and transparency, but it was also found not acceptable. Section 12(a)(i) makes certain exceptions for governments and government agencies from the provisions of consent,” he said. Ramesh said in his note That the JCP report allows a period of two years for private companies to migrate to the new data protection regime, but governments and government agencies have no such condition.
They argued that the design of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 recognizes that the constitutional right to privacy arises only where the operations and activities of private companies are concerned. The Congress leader said that governments and government agencies are treated as a separate privileged class whose operations and activities are always in the public interest and considerations of individual privacy are secondary. He said, “The idea that the Supreme Court’s August 2017 Puttaswamy judgment is relevant to only a very, very, very small section of the Indian population is, in my view, very flawed and disturbing and I completely believe it.” reject it,” he insisted. in his note.
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