The majority in the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Data Protection Bill is believed to have decided to empower the Centre to exempt any agency of the Government from the application of the proposed legislation. The panel rejected the Opposition’s demand that any exemption should have Parliamentary oversight or a written order should be tabled in both the Houses.
The majority of the members are learnt to have reasoned that the Centre should have the power to exempt any agency from the purview of the legislation considering legitimate purposes such as security of State, public order etc.
The exemptions, listed in Clause 35 of the Bill, are in the form of the reasonable restrictions imposed upon the liberty of an individual, as guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution and the Puttaswamy Judgment, explained a member in the panel.
He said members were concerned about the breach of privacy rights of an individual, but provisions in the legislation have to be subsumed for the protection of the larger interests of the State.
“The State has rightly been empowered to exempt itself from the application of this Act, this power may, however, be used only under exceptional circumstances and subject to conditions as laid out in the Act,” the member said.
Opposition members were against the majority view in the panel during its last meeting, which finalised its two-year-old proceedings and adopted a report and a draft amended Bill here on Monday. Almost all the Opposition MPs have decided to move dissent notes against the report. Some of the members have sent their notes to Chairman PP Chaudhury, while others have been given time till Wednesday.
‘Unbridled powers’
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh moved a dissent note and said the design of the Bill assumes that the constitutional right to privacy arises only where operations and activities of private companies are concerned. He said in the note that Governments and government agencies are treated as a separate privileged class whose operations and activities are always in the public interest and individual privacy considerations are secondary.
Ramesh said Section 35 gives almost unbridled powers to the Centre to exempt any government agency from the entire Act itself.
He said asking the Centre to get Parliamentary approval for exempting any of its agencies from the purview of the law or that the reasons for exemption would be recorded in writing would be tabled in both Houses of Parliament would have brought greater accountability and transparency. He said the ground of ‘public order’ should be deleted in Section 35(i) given its susceptibility to misuse.
‘Design flaw’
Senior Congress MP Manish Tewari said in his note that there is an inherent design flaw in the Bill’s very construction. “A Bill that seeks therefore to provide blanket exemptions either in perpetuity or even for a limited period to the state’ and its instrumentalities, in my estimation is ultra vires of the Fundamental Right to Privacy as laid down by a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of in Puttuswamy case,” Tewari said.
Trinamool Congress MPs Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra said the panel rushed through its mandate, not providing sufficient time and opportunity for stakeholder consultations.
“The proceedings of the Committee were held multiple times per week, during an ongoing pandemic, making it difficult for MPs residing outside Delhi to attend. We strongly oppose the Bill for lack of adequate safeguards to protect the right to privacy of data principals. In addition, we oppose the recommendations of the Committees for the inclusion of non-personal data within this legislation,” they said.