IT Ministry to brief House panel on data Bill during Jan 14 meet

The Bill will be a first of its kind in the country, mandating certain types of data to be stored only in the country and giving some rights to users to control how their data is used.

It was learnt that committee members were looking to focus on decreasing the exceptions given to the state in the Bill. In other words, they hope to add more elements of state surveillance reform.

The Lok Sabha members of the JSC are: chairperson Meenakshi Lekhi, P P Chaudhary, S S Ahluwalia, Tejasvi Surya, Ajay Bhatt, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Sanjay Jaiswal, Kiritbhai Solanki, Arvind Dharmapuri, Heena Gavit, Uday Pratap Singh, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Gaurav Gogoi, S Jothi Mani, Saugata Roy, Kanimozhi, P V Midhun Reddy, Shrikant Eknath Shinde, Bhartruhari Mahtab and Ritesh Pandey.

The Rajya Sabha members are: Bhupender Yadav, Suresh Prabhu, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Jairam Ramesh, Vivek K Tankha, Derek O’Brien, A Navaneethakrishnan, Ram Gopal Yadav and Amar Patnaik.

On December 12, Tharoor wrote to the Speaker to “caution this government against such wilful exercise of undermining the House”. “In a brazen disregard for the Committee, and by extension, the parliamentary convention relating to Standing Committees, this government has chosen to establish Joint Select Committee, presumably in order to extend its control by a Chairman from the ruling party. The exercise in creating a Joint Select Committee on a matter that rests squarely within the purview of an existing Standing Committee sets a dangerous precedent since it will allow the government to bypass the designated Standing Committee in every instance where a contentious Bill is under consideration.”

In the Standing Committee’s first hearing in November, sharp political differences had emerged, it was learnt, as BJP members objected to the committee having jurisdiction over the topic, citing parliamentary procedure rules. It was learnt that 12 non-BJP members, including from BJP-allied parties, voted to discuss the matter, while 12 BJP members voted against it. Tharoor, the committee chairman, broke the tie with his second vote in favour of discussion.