Shashi Tharoor Demands Action Against Officials For Refusal To Attend IT Meet

In his letter, Shashi Tharoor said just before the sitting, he was informed by the committee branch of the secretariat that e-mail communications have been received from 3 ministries/department that their representatives would not be able to appear before the committee.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, has urged Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to take action over ministry officials' "last-minute refusal" to attend a panel meet, which he said constituted "contempt of the House". The panel was to hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss several issues including the Pegasus snooping allegations. It had summoned officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Communications (Department of Telecommunications) on the subject 'Citizens data security and privacy'. However, the meeting could not take place as the BJP members of the panel did not sign the attendance register, even though they were present in the meeting room, leading to a lack of quorum.