Sending of data protection bill to joint panel sets ‘dangerous precedent’: Shashi Tharoor

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said creating a Joint Select Committee to examine the Personal Data Protection Bill, instead of sending it to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, sets a dangerous precedent as it will allow the government to bypass the designated panel whenever a contentious legislation is under consideration. Tharoor, who heads the Standing Committee on Information Technology, also wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and expressed his concerns over the issue.

Later, Tharoor also tweeted that the Speaker had asked him this morning to postpone the meeting of the IT Committee in view of a whip issued by BJP to its Rajya Sabha members which would make it impossible for them to attend and, therefore, he deferred it to December 13. “I specifically asked the Speaker whether his request affected all Committee meetings