Manan Kumar
During the recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament, the government rammed through several key pieces of legislation amid repeated disruptions due to the opposition’s demand for a debate on the ethnic violence in Manipur that broke out on May 3. Crucial among these was the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill, 2023.
The government has called it path-breaking legislation in favour of the people but unfortunately, the Bill itself was passed rather surreptitiously within four days of introduction without any debate by a voice vote amidst the din in both Houses.
The warnings given by several opposition members that it would crush citizens’ privacy rights, leading to a surveillance state, and must be forwarded to a joint parliamentary panel for scrutiny failed to elicit a response from both the government and the Speaker in the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The government did not waste any time in securing presidential assent on August 11, making it an Act.
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