'New data protection bill likely to be tabled in winter session'

The government told the Supreme Court on Thursday that the new data protection Bill would be introduced in Parliament soon. It indicated that the Bill may be tabled in the next (Winter) session.

The information was shared with the apex court when it resumed hearing of a case pertaining to instant messaging platform WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy. The case is being heard by a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice KM Joseph.

Appearing on behalf of the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said WhatsApp cannot discriminate between its Indian and global users. Senior advocate Shyam Divan, who represented the petitioners, said Indian users have been deprived of their fundamental rights. "The same platform operating in other countries, especially in the European Union, has higher standards of privacy and those standards are not prevalent in India," Divan argued.

To this, the Solicitor General told the Bench that the Centre was "alive to the situation and a (new data protection) Bill is underway."

It is a legislative and not a judicial issue for which the Centre should be given some more time, he added.



The Bench headed by Justice Joseph asked: "Why is it (the case) before a Constitution Bench? If the government is keen on having a legislation it could have put it in place by now."

The top court posted the matter for January 17 next year and directed the government to introduce a new Bill by then.

The Solicitor General said the Centre had already withdrawn the old Bill and would soon introduce a new one in Parliament. He added that WhatsApp would have to comply with Indian laws and treat its users in the country on equal terms as their global counterparts.

Appearing on behalf of WhatsApp, senior lawyer Kapil Sibal informed the Bench that the WhatsApp privacy policy was tight.

"The privacy issue should be applicable to other platforms also. European countries have their own set of laws that are applied there. In India, we follow what the present law is. It has investment issues and has a commercial angle and has very far-reaching consequences," he said.

To this, the Bench said, "We are here to secure the rights of the users...Indian WhatsApp users are the highest in the world. So, the advantage and disadvantage of the largest group of users is perceived here."

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 was withdrawn on August 3 after a Joint Committee of Parliament sought 81 changes and 12 "major recommendations" to it.

The Bill, which was approved by the Union Cabinet in December 2019, proposes restrictions on the use of personal information of people without their explicit consent. The items covered by the draft Bill included consent, personal data, exemptions that can be granted, storage restrictions for personal data and individual rights.