E-commerce giant Amazon refused to appear before the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Data Protection Bill on October 28 saying their "subject matter experts are overseas" and cannot appear due to travel risk amid Covid.
Panel chairperson and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said this amounts to breach of privilege. She also added that ‘the panel is unanimous in its opinion that coercive action can be suggested to the government against the e-commerce company’.
Meanwhile, Facebook's policy chief Ankhi Das and business head Ajit Mohan appeared before the committee on Friday and were reportedly questioned for two hours.
The panel has summoned officials of micro-blogging site Twitter on October 28, and Google and Paytm executives on October 29.