All NotesCivil LawInformation Technology Act, 2000

Information Technology Act, 2000

The Committees Behind the Law: Shah, Viswanathan, Watal, Srikrishna

Behind the statutes and judgments sits a line of expert committees, each supplying the thinking a later law or case drew on: privacy principles, a replacement for a struck-down offence, a payments blueprint, and the data-protection framework that became the DPDP Act. Topics 87 and 122 state the resulting law; this note, as asked, covers its committee genesis.

1. The Committee Line

From privacy principles to the DPDP Act

Figure 1: From privacy principles to the DPDP Act

  • A.P. Shah Group of Experts on Privacy (2012). The Planning Commission's Group of Experts, chaired by Justice A.P. Shah, articulated nine national privacy principles, notice, consent, collection and purpose limitation, access, security, disclosure, openness and accountability, and proposed a privacy law; its thinking is visible in the Puttaswamy reasoning and the later data-protection drafts (Topic 122)
  • T.K. Viswanathan Committee (2015). Constituted after Shreya Singhal struck down s.66A, it recommended new, narrowly drawn offences to address online hate and threatening speech within constitutional limits, the attempt to fill the gap the Court left, not yet enacted as a dedicated provision (Topic 59)
  • Ratan Watal Committee on Digital Payments (2016). The Committee on Digital Payments, chaired by Ratan Watal, recommended an independent payments regulator and a lighter, more inclusive digital-payments framework, feeding the evolution of payments regulation (Topic 147)
  • B.N. Srikrishna Committee (2017-2018). The Committee of Experts chaired by Justice B.N. Srikrishna produced the data-protection blueprint and the draft Personal Data Protection Bill 2018, the direct ancestor of the legislative line that became the DPDP Act, 2023 (Topics 87, 116)
  • Kris Gopalakrishnan Committee (2020). The expert committee chaired by Kris Gopalakrishnan proposed a framework for the governance of non-personal data, the still-unlegislated companion to the personal-data regime.

2. Quick Revision

Committee to outcome

Figure 2: Committee to outcome

⚠ Exam trap

Match each committee to what it fed: Shah to the privacy principles behind Puttaswamy, Viswanathan to the post-66A offence redesign, Watal to digital-payments regulation, Srikrishna to the PDP Bill and the DPDP Act, and Gopalakrishnan to non-personal data governance. The Srikrishna line matured into the DPDP Act, while the Viswanathan offences and the Gopalakrishnan framework remain largely unlegislated.

3. Frequently Asked Questions

Which committees shaped India's data-protection and cyber law?

The A.P. Shah Group of Experts on Privacy (2012) set out nine privacy principles that informed Puttaswamy; the T.K. Viswanathan Committee (2015) recommended new online-speech offences after Section 66A was struck down; the Ratan Watal Committee (2016) shaped digital-payments regulation; the B.N. Srikrishna Committee (2017-2018) produced the blueprint and draft Bill that led to the DPDP Act, 2023; and the Kris Gopalakrishnan Committee (2020) proposed a non-personal data framework. The Srikrishna line became law; the others largely have not.

4. Related Topics

  • Topic 87: Privacy and Data Protection. Where the Srikrishna line led.
  • Topic 122: Privacy Cases. The Shah principles in Puttaswamy.