Expect Opposition to participate in discussions: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Government on Wednesday said that the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill should be passed in Parliament and expects the Opposition to participate in discussions.

The DPDP Bill is expected to be tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

“The government expects the Opposition to participate in discussions on all Bills in Parliament and it remains open to debate on all issues, including Manipur,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology on Wednesday said.

He said the Bill has evolved after a lot of consultation and instead disturbance in the House, the Opposition should debate it, and help in passing the Bill.

“I hope Parliament is not disrupted not for just this Bill but every Bill. Every issue the government is saying why don’t we debate, discuss it. Whether it is Manipur, DPDP, Cooperation Bill,” Chandrasekhar reiterated.

He also refuted allegations levelled by Rajya Sabha Member John Brittas that DPDP Bill has been shared with the Standing Committee of Communications and IT before its introduction in Parliament.

“He was wrong. I have very gently and politely pointed out to him that he was trying to misinform and create a fake narrative. The Bill was never referred to the standing committee,” he said adding that the Standing Committee has on its own evaluated the issue of citizen’s privacy and data protection, looked at the earlier draft and commented.

Brittas is also a member of the Committee. In his dissent note to the panel, Brittas said recommendations by the panel on DPDP Bill in a draft report are ‘void ab initio and ultra vires’ of the powers of the panel conferred by the rules.

“The rules proscribe the standing committee from examining such yet to be introduced Bills,” Brittas had said in the note.

“They are well within their rights to do so. I think Brittas has tried to characterise it as some sort of backdoor by which the Committee has got a copy of the Bill in advance and members did not. I think this is a wrong characterisation,” Chandrasekhar added.