Nagpur: The Centre on Wednesday withdrew the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill. The decision comes after a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) spent two years deliberating the 2019 draft of the Bill before tabling its report in December 2021.
It was expected that the Bill would be enacted which would give the country its first data protection law. The government, however, soon promised to introduce a new legislation “very soon but without any dilution to broader privacy aspects of the original bill and without any compromise to the Right to Privacy” as provided by the Supreme Court in its historic judgement given in August 2017.
Minister of Communications and Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “Personal Data Protection Bill has been withdrawn because the JCP recommended 81 amendments in a bill of 99 sections. Above that, it made 12 major amendments. A new bill will be presented for public consultation. ”
The minister added that the government had decided to initiate the move with a progre4ssive mindset, denying speculation that there was a pressure to dilute certain provisions that were impacting global social media giants and other stakeholders.
The existing bill had gained massive criticism from the top internet giants such as Meta, Google and Amazon.
