Report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 presented in Parliament

The Indian Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (“PDP Bill”) has been pending finalization since it was first tabled in the Indian Parliament by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (“Ministry”) on December 11, 2019. The 30-member joint parliamentary committee (JPC) set up in 2019 to review the PDP Bill, finalized its report, a whole two years after the PDP Bill was first announced, on November 22, 2021. The JPC was asked to present its report for review in the winter session of the Indian Parliament in December 2021.

Accordingly, the JPC report (recommending the implementation of the PDP Bill) has been tabled before the Rajya Sabha for consideration today (December 16, 2021). However, it is pertinent to consider that various members of the JPC had filed dissent notes to the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee soon after it was finalized.

Interestingly, most of the dissent was raised by members of opposition parties, primarily regarding the exemption granted under the Bill to the government and government agencies under the pretext of national and public interest.

The JPC report on the Bill can be accessed at -

https://www.www.ahlawatassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/17-Joint-Committee-on-the-Personal-Data-Protection-Bill-2019.pdf