Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will be holding an audience with IT panel chairman, Shashi Tharoor over what transpired at the panel meeting earlier this week. Birla is also expected to meet all members of the House panel to resolve the concerns raised by Tharoor.
A discussion on citizens’ data privacy and security, earlier this week, was derailed when 10 BJP MPs showed up and refused to mark their presence in the attendance register, which resulted in lack of quorum. The IT panel which is expected to discuss the Pegasus spyware issue, had called officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Ministry of Home Affairs, and Department of Telecommunication on the subject Citizens Data Security and Privacy.
Three Union secretaries excused themselves from appearing before the panel just an hour before the meeting and without, as per procedure, seeking Tharoor’s consent first. In a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the IT panel Chairman said failure to appear before a parliamentary committee when summoned constitutes contempt of the House. He sought appropriate action under the rules against the secretaries of Home, Information Technology and Communications for failing to appear before the House Panel.
Tharoor also said he did not excuse the witnesses from attending the proceedings and that the last minute refusal was both unprecedented and clearly constituted a breach of parliamentary privilege and contempt of the House. He said the MeitY forward an email at 2.44 pm seeking exemption from appearance before the committee stating that the Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 has desired to have an urgent meeting with the Secretary and other senior officers of MeitY for discussion, clarification on The Personal Data Protection Bill at 3.45 pm in the Chairman’s chamber in Parliament House annexe.
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The IT panel chairman pointed out that a similar communication was received from the Department of Telecommunication at 2.52pm stating that it will not be possible for Secretary, DoT to appear before the committee due to urgent Parliament related matters relating to Parliament questions listed for July 29.
In regards to what had transpired in the Wednesday’s meeting, Tharoor told the media that he is very disappointed that some elements on some issues have chosen to reduce this committee to some sort of a ping pong match, which is not in the spirit of Parliament or parliamentary committee.
