If the government was interested, it would have already passed legislation – Constitutional bench on the new data privacy and protection bill

Case: Karmanya Singh Sareen v. Union of India
Bench: Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar

The Central government told a Constitution Bench of the Top Court that the government is framing new data privacy and protection.

Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta submitted before the bench while hearing a case concerning WhatsApp’s privacy policy and the right of users under Article 21. He, thus, requested the bench to defer the hearing

According to Justice Joseph, the Court cannot wait for too long since the issue is so important, and if the government were interested, it would have already passed legislation.

In August, the Lok Sabha approved a motion to withdraw the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (PDP Bill) prepared by Justice Srikrishna committee by a voice vote.

This was Under the new Joint Parliamentary Committee recommendations.

The Court posted the case for hearing on January 17, 2023.

Background

The petitioners initially moved the Delhi HC challenging the 2016 privacy policy of WhatsApp. HC granted partial relief on September 23, 2016, stating that the data of WhatsApp users who deleted WhatsApp before the 2016 policy came into effect could not be used for any purpose.

The said decision was challenged before Top Court. The SC, in April 2017, referred the matter to a Constitution Bench. Later, when the Constitution Bench took up the case, it was pending after the Court was informed that Justice BN Srikrishna-led committee was preparing a Data Protection Bill.

Subsequently, WhatsApp updated its policy on January 4, 2021.