Why Send Data Protection Bill to Joint Committee, Ask Experts

(Erum Gour/ The Quint)

The Centre on Wednesday referred the Bill to a 30-member Joint Committee. 

The Centre’s decision on Wednesday, 11 December, to refer the controversial Personal Data Protection Bill to Joint Parliamentary Committee, instead of the Standing Committee on Information Technology, has drawn criticism from cyber-security and other experts in the domain of data privacy.

Little Clarity From Govt

Raman Chima, Policy Director at Access Now, felt that by referring the Bill to a select committee, the BJP-led Union government has broken away from the tradition of allowing an existing standing committee on the matter to examine a bill independently.

Chima was referring to the Standing Committee on IT, which is headed by Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor.

“Today, the Union government, with no clear reason, shied away from letting the Indian Parliament’s standing committee of IT – chaired by Shashi Tharoor – do its ordinary job of scrutinising this important but flawed bill.”

Raman Chima, Policy Director, Access Now

Why Not Send it to the Standing Committee?

Echoing Chima, Apar Gupta, Executive Director at Internet Freedom Foundation, questioned why the government had referred the Bill to a select joint committee when the Standing Committee on IT was already studying the subject of data privacy in India.

"The reference to the select committee is highly unusual and strays from set process. This becomes curious as the Standing Committee is in any instance considering the issue of citizens privacy and online security," he said.

Similarly, Supreme Court activist Pavan Duggal said that asking a new committee to study the Bill afresh is akin to “re-inventing the wheel” as the existing Standing Committee has already being examining the matter – any decision to send it to a JPC would normally be taken after the Standing Committee has looked into the matter.

“Whenever a contentious Bill comes up, it is usually sent to the relevant standing committee. It must first go to the Standing Committee and then to the joint committee. There has to be an explanation for this deviation.” 

Pavan Duggal, Supreme Court Advocate

Composition of Joint Committee

The new Joint Parliamentary Committee comprises 20 members from the Lok Sabha, including Meenakshi Lekhi, Tejasvi Surya, SS Ahluwalia, Gaurav Gogoi and Kanimozhi among others. In addition, the committee will also include 10 more members from the Rajya Sabha, who are yet to be nominated. The body must submit a report by the first day of the last week of the Budget Session, to be held in 2020.