Govt to send Data Protection Bill to select committee

The government on Wednesday proposed sending the Personal Data Protection Bill to a joint select committee of both the Houses of Parliament amid protests by the opposition, which said the right of privacy of citizens is being compromised.

Even before the bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government will bring a resolution in the House to refer it to a joint select committee of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

He said the proposed committee could bring out a report before the Budget session, which usually begins in the last week of January.

Shashi Tharoor of the Congress, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology, protested the move and said it should be referred to his panel.

Prasad said the joint panel will have the sole agenda of going through the bill as the parliamentary standing committee has other bills to scrutinise.