Opposition members walked out of a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on Wednesday, objecting to the panel’s adoption of a “laudatory” report on the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023.
The Union Cabinet approved the latest version of the Bill only on July 5, and the Opposition MPs on the panel said none of them had yet read it. The Bill was never formally referred to the committee, which is headed by Shiv Sena (Shinde) MP Prataprao Jhadav. The Opposition MPs said none of them were aware that such a report about the Bill was on the works; the draft report was only circulated on the eve of the meeting.
Despite this, the report claimed that, “The committee, therefore, in no uncertain words endorse the proposed legislation without any reservations or ambiguity.”
