Clause 35 of The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019: Whether a Reasonable Restriction or a Withering Away of Fundamental Right to Information Privacy?

The object of the paper is to critically examine the exception and decide thereafter whether the restriction on the right to privacy envisaged under clause 35 of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 is reasonable, proportional and constitutional. It will also be examined whether the provision needs to be omitted or modified substantially or modified marginally to do justice to the subject of information privacy. Beginning with the first available UN document on the human right namely the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the privacy law and its limitations in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will be analyzed. Thereafter, the regional human rights documents namely the European Convention of Human Rights 1950 of the Council of Europe and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 2000 will be referred to understand the nature and scope of the human right to privacy. The clause 35 of the PDP Bill, 2019 will then be discussed to ascertain the limitations imposed under this clause on information privacy law. The modernized Convention 108 (Convention 108+) of the Council of Europe, the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) of the European Union, the report of the Committee of Experts headed by Justice B.N Srikrishna, the case-law including the nine judges bench decision of the Supreme Court of India, the relevant provisions of the Constitution of India, the draft Personal Data Protection Bill of 2018 and the report of the Joint Committee of Parliament will be referred to evaluate the constitutionality of the exemption from the law proposed in the clause 35 of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.