NEW DELHI: As the country sets on the task of drafting the data protection legislation, it has sought the help of a legal think tank which was instrumental in drafting of the Aadhaar Act as well as the Bankruptcy Code apart from other recent policy initiatives.According to a top government official, the ministry of electronics and IT (MEITY), which is heading the committee that is responsible for drafting the law has sought help from the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy . "They will help with inputs on the legal aspects as well as in drafting the legislation," said the official. MEITY will also seek the help of eminent jurists and lawyers of the country on the legislation but that will be part of the larger stakeholder discussion exercise after the first draft has created, added the official.Though the government has not put a time frame to it, it wants to come up with the law as soon as possible and the first draft will be certainly released before the end of this year, said the official.This is the first time that India has started work on a specific data protection law, which is expected to look at aspects such as data sovereignty, data retention and responsibilities of government, companies as well as individuals while handling third party data.A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court will sit on July 18 and 19 to hear matters relating to Aadhaar, including the aspect of right to privacy.Arghya Sengupta, Founder and Research Director at Vidhi told ET that a lot of recent criticism against Aadhaar is instead criticism about the fact that India doesn't have a data protection law. "Aadhaar is only one part of this ecosystem which is admittedly becoming larger," said Sengupta.There is an issue with regard to what the private operators are doing with the citizen's data, every time people sign on to an app and it asks for multiple permissions to access photos etc, he added. "I have little hesitation in admitting that successive generations will possibly think that we were fools that every time we downloaded an application, we signed away our rights. So there is a larger question which is not just an Aadhaar related question but in terms of who owns our data and what happens with personal data that is shared. That is the framework that we need and that’s essentially the need of the hour," Sengupta said.Even though the Information Technology Act contains certain provisions about data protection and handling, experts are of the opinion that it may be inadequate to deal with the current requirements since it was drafted almost 17 years ago in 2000 and was amended last in 2008."In the last 5-6 years there has been a quantum leap in the world of technology which has been driven by trends such as proliferation of social media, growth of ecommerce leading to boom in transactions over the Internet and demonetisation, which has pushed more people into the digital economy, so the IT act may have to be obviously reconsidered in the light of these developments," said Sengupta of Vidhi which was set up in 2013 as a legal policy think tank.Adding that some legislative gap exists, Sengupta said that be it governments, individuals or any private entity – any entity that processes large data should have some obligation with respect to data handling. "The legislation should have rules pertaining to obligation of data handlers, ways of collection of data, its use, and do's and don'ts for any kind of onward sharing," said Sengupta.In the last couple of months, there has been a lot of debate about the handling of citizen data especially which has been linked to sensitive information such as Aadhaar or people's bank accounts.Another government official who is involved in the process said that a data protection framework is imp both for digital payments and from the point of view of the larger internet economy.It is also important since India is one of the leading users of data from outside and European Union has also been asking India to have a data protection law."The IT Act has the umbrella provisions but we don't have a dedicated or comprehensive law, incidentally in many parts of world there is no single law and there are state laws, federal laws, sector specific laws for areas such as health etc," said the official adding that the government is looking at international best practices before drafting its own legislation.The government has created a drafting committee which has had a couple of meetings so far.