Bill: Congress’s Manish Tewari claims Data Protection Bill classified as money bill, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw refutes | India News

NEW DELHI: Union information and technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday refuted the allegation of Congress MP Manish Tewari that the Digital Data Protection Bill has been classified as a financial bill by the government.

In a tweet, Tewari said, “How Did the Digital Data Protection Bill get classified as a Financial Bill suddenly? If this bill on passage is certified as a money bill by
@loksabhaspeaker @ombirlakota, which seems to be the intent of getting it classed as a Financial Bill, then Rajya Sabha can not vote on it. It can only recommend non binding changes to Lok Sabha.”

Tewari also shared a copy of the presidential order classifying the bill as a money bill, and said, “The latest iteration of this Bill mocks the efforts put in by the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Data Protection Bill led by two BJP members P P Chaudhary and Meenakshi Lekhi respectively. It needs to be considered as a regular bill and go to a JPC again.”

However, hours after Tewari, having expressed the apprehension about the Digital Data Protection Bill, Union minister for electronics and information technology (MeitY) Ashwini Vaishnaw refuted the charge and termed it a “normal bill”.
As the bill was moved in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Vaishnaw rejected the suggestions that it was a money bill and called it a “normal bill”.
The bill aims to make entities such as internet companies, mobile apps and business houses more accountable and answerable about the collection, storage and processing of data of citizens as part of the Right to Privacy.
Government sources said the President’s assent had been sought as funds will be earmarked under the proposed law from the Consolidated Fund of India. They said the penalties that will come under the law and the expenditure on the staff required under the law will be under the Consolidated Fund of India.
The work on the data protection bill started after the Supreme Court ruled that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right.
The government had in August last year withdrawn the personal data protection bill, which was first presented in late 2019 and issued a new version of the draft bill in November 2022.
The draft bill had earned criticism around the government getting the power to exempt entities from various clauses of the bill.
(With agency inputs)