After nearly two years, the much-awaited and long-overdue report by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Data Protection Bill 2019 was tabled on Monday, 22 November.
Though the report has not been made available in the public domain yet, as many as seven MP’s from the Congress Trinamool Congress and the BJD have submitted dissent notes to the committee since some clauses give the Centre sweeping powers to collect and process data.
While Congress MP Jairam Ramesh in his dissent note stated that the bill assumes that “constitutional right to privacy arises only where operations and activities of private companies are concerned”, TMC MPs Derek O'Brien and Mahua Moitra described the 2019 Bill as "Orwellian" in nature and raised questions on the functioning of the committee.