Final Version Of IT Rules With Data Protection Norms Coming Soon: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The final version of the Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021, with the new legislation is set to come soon, the Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said while speaking at the India Ideas Summit organised by the US-India Business Council recently. 

“We will see a very contemporary, very global standard set of laws that enable our trillion-dollar goal, the Prime Minister’s techade vision and protect the rights and interests of all Indian citizens. You will see that at the earliest,” the minister of state said while speaking with CNBC-TV18 post the event’s conclusion.

The discussion was about data governance in India at the US Chamber of Commerce event.

“These new laws, in a sense, supersede existing legislation. So, the Digital India Act will clearly supersede the IT Act. There is no question of both of them existing. If there are any contradictions with the existing and legacy laws, we will get them amended,” Chandrasekhar said.

The government is making the proposed amendments and will be looking to bring the new legislation as soon as possible, the minister of state noted. Chandrasekhar added that the government would conduct multiple rounds of public and stakeholder consultation before tabling the data protection bill again in the parliament.

Speaking about multiple requests made by foreign stakeholders for India to relax its data laws, Chandrasekhar added, “We know what our national interests are, we know what is required for us to grow our economy into a trillion-dollar digital economy and there will be some counterbalancing interests from other countries. We will talk to those; our interests are not very different from what the US wants.”

The comments come after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that India’s data protection law will be coming soon. She stated that the minister of electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw is working ‘very diligently’ to formulate the new data protection norms, as part of the amendments within the larger IT rules.

India’s data protection legislation has seen a number of ups and downs over the last few years. First introduced in 2019, the Personal Data Protection bill underwent a number of cycles of amendments all the way till 2021.

Recently, the bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha for consultation and approval, but Union Minister for electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw pulled the bill from the Lok Sabha on August 3 after a joint parliamentary committee recommended 81 amendments.

While the move did attract criticism and concerns over the timeline for the new bill from the industry, the government is looking to table the bill once again earliest by the upcoming Winter Session of the parliament.

Meanwhile, the IT rules themselves have faced scrutiny from stakeholders from both India and overseas. Interestingly, the US-India Business Council, the host of the event where both Chandrasekhar and Sitharaman spoke, raised concerns about the amendments in the IT rules back in July.

Specifically, the USIBC raised concerns about the formation of the Grievance Appellate Committee and how it would operate independently if the government was involved in creating the committee.