New Data Protection Bill to be introduced in Parliament's Monsoon Session: AG Venkataramani tells Supreme Court

Attorney General of India R Venkataramani told the Supreme Court today that the new Data Protection Bill will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament in July this year.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice KM Joseph was told so by the AG while he was making submissions in the case related to WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy.

The case deals with the question on whether the said policy violates the users' right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The Constitution bench after taking note of the Attorney General’s statement, said the matter will now be placed before the registry to be placed before the Chief Justice of India for reconstituting the bench as s two judges of the present bench would be retiring soon.

A few months back the Supreme Court bench of Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar had directed WhatsApp Inc to widely publicise that its users are not bound to accept its 2021 privacy policy which has been challenged in Supreme Court on account of being violative of the right to privacy.

Notably, the bench had directed WhatsApp to advertise so in five national newspapers on two occasions so that those who have not accepted the privacy policy till now, were aware that the functionality of the messaging app which they continue to use, won't be affected till the new data protection laws are enforced.

In January 2021, Whatsapp had rolled out a new privacy policy, asking users to accept the policy till February 2021. This policy does not allow users with an opt-out option from sharing data with Facebook Inc. As a result, on February 15, 2021, an application was filed challenging this new policy and the then CJI Bobde led bench issued notice on it. 

Both policies, of 2016 and 2021 permit WhatsApp to share data with Facebook Inc. and all its group companies for the purposes of commercial advertising and marketing and are now under challenge before a constitution bench of Supreme Court, after it was referred by a division bench on April 5, 2017.

Case Title: Karmanya Sareen Vs. Union of India & other batch petitions