Data Protection Bill: Parliamentary panel adopts report amid Opposition walkout

Several Opposition MPs walked out of a parliamentary panel meeting that adopted the report on the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, claiming that the panel didn't get to see the final draft, sources said.

Parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology, chaired by Shiv Sena's Prataprao Jhadav, adopted the report on Wednesday. The bill is listed for introduction and passage in the ongoing monsoon session.

In July's first week, the Cabinet approved the latest version of the bill. Before that, a draft was circulated for comments from stakeholders. The bill was never formally referred to the panel and was taken up suo motu, the sources said.


Seven MPs, including Congress' Karti Chidambaram, Trinamool's Mahua Moitra and Jawhar Sircar, CPI-M's John Brittas and TDP's Jayadev Galla opposed the draft and walked out of the meeting, they said. The panel also witnessed heated arguments between the Opposition and BJP MPs including Nishikant Dubey, sources said. When contacted, Dubey said the adoption was done as per Rule 261 of LS rules and procedures

According to sources, Brittas gave a dissent note asking how the committee can "endorse the proposed legislation" without seeing the original copy. During the meeting, he and other Opposition MPs expressed apprehensions that this bill has clauses which will impact the Right to Information Act.

Talking to ET, Sircar said all Opposition MPs walked out because BJP MPs wanted to adopt the report "without giving us a chance to examine the final and latest version of the bill. I raised several issues including that the government was destroying the watchdog body Data Protection Board by packing it with its own men rather than judicial and independent persons".