Bill for protection of personal data is ready, Centre tells Supreme Court

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, April 11

The Central Government will introduce the new Data Protection Bill in Parliament during the monsoon session in July, Attorney General R Venkataramani told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

“The Bill is ready. It just has to be introduced in Parliament. It will be introduced in the monsoon session in July…It may be considered after that,” Venkataramani told a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Justice KM Joseph which was hearing petitions challenging the latest privacy policy of WhatsApp.

The new Data Protection Bill would address all concerns raised in the petitions being heard by the court, the top law officer told the Bench which also included Justice Ajay Rastogi, Justice Aniruddha Bose, Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice CT Ravikumar.

Opposing the Attorney General’s submission, senior advocate Shyam Divan urged the Bench on behalf of the petitioners not to link the ongoing hearing to “complex legislative process” which could cause delay. When the matter came up for hearing for the first time, the Bench was told that the Bill would be introduced in the winter session but it wasn’t, Divan pointed out. “The consultation process is a continuous process so it went through a very qualified consultation process,” Venkataramani replied. As Justice Joseph and Justice Rastogi are due to retire in June, the Bench requested the top court’s Registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice of India for setting up a new Bench to take up the matter afresh, preferably in the first week of August.

India does not have a standalone data protection law and the field is regulated under the IT Act, 2000, which, many believe, doesn’t offer a proper framework to ensure protection of personal data.

While declaring the right to privacy to be a fundamental right, the Supreme Court had on August 24, 2017, noted that informational privacy was a facet of the right to privacy and dangers to privacy in an age of information could originate from both the state and non-state actors.

Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, draft entails…

Board to look into non-compliance

• Centre to establish Data Protection Board of India to adjudicate non-compliance with provisions of new law
• Confers certain rights on individuals such as right to obtain information, seek correction and erasure

Govt agencies may be exempted

Centre may exempt govt agencies from application of provisions of new law in the interest of security of the state, public order, and crime prevention

Data within and outside India

• Will apply to processing personal data within India collected online or offline
• Will also apply to processing digital personal data outside India, if it’s for offering goods or services or profiling individuals in India