Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib Manish Tewari and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh on Monday submitted a dissent note on the data protection bill in the joint parliamentary committee meeting held to adopt the draft of the bill.
Submitting a dissent note, Jairam Ramesh said, "The Joint Committee of Parliament has adopted its report on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. There are dissent notes, but that is in the best spirit of parliamentary democracy. Sadly, such examples are few and far between under the Modi regime."
"I am compelled to submit a detailed dissent note. But that should not detract from the democratic manner in which the Committee has functioned. Now, for the debate in Parliament," Jairam said.
Tewari said, "I was constrained to submit a dissent note as I do not agree with the fundamental design and construction of the bill."
He complimented the JPC Chairman P.P. Chaudhary for the role he played in the drafting of the bill.
In his dissent note, Manish Tewari wrote to Chaudhary that "Since committee in its wisdom decided to accept none of the substantive amendments proposed by me, I hereby submit that the comments and amendments contained in the note annexed herewith should be treated as my dissent to the proposed bill as amended time to time under consideration of the honourable committee."
Tewari said that he is not in sync with many clauses which have been proposed in the bill and suggested clause by clause amendments.
After its introduction in the Lok Sabha, the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, had been referred to the joint committee to seek views and suggestions on the legislation from individuals and associations/bodies concerned. The committee met last month to deliberate on the legislation. This was the first meeting after its Chairman Meenakshi Lekhi was appointed as minister, and P.P. Chaudhary succeeded her.
