Five New Ministers from JPC on Data Protection Bill joined the Cabinet

Five members of the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, including its chairperson Meenakashi Lekhi, were among those inducted into the Union Council of Ministers on Wednesday.

Besides Lekhi, four others who have been made ministers are Lok Sabha member Ajay Bhatt and Rajya Sabha members Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The panel has held several meetings and summoned representatives of Twitter, Facebook, Google and e-commerce major Amazon. The draft data protection bill proposes to put restrictions on the use of personal information of people without their explicit consent.

A question is on ,whether the key panel report after several hearings with Big Tech representative is ready to be submitted in the monsoon session?

The panel Chairperson Meenakshi Lekhi has taken charge as new Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for Culture, Ashwini Vaishnaw, a Rajya Sabha member from Odisha, has taken charge of the Ministry of Electronics and IT and Railways and Data protection bill committee member Rajeev Chandrasekhar is the new Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Electronics and IT.

Whereas, another panel member Ajay Bhatt has been inducted as Minister of State for Defence and Tourism and the elevation of Bhupender Yadav, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary since 2010 and Rajya Sabha MP, to the Union Cabinet is being seen as a reward for being a dependable organisation man.

A subject matter expert said, First of all ministers cannot hold membership or chairmanship of parliamentary committees, so JPC on data protection may require to be reshuffled if its report has not yet been submitted and secondly, there were reports that this bill may come for discussion in the monsoon session of the parliament but if JPC is reshuffled, will it further delay the passing of data protection law by the Parliament?

The questions remained unanswered..