Dr Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University, Lucknow

Faculty of Law

(information technology LAW)

Assignment on
“effect of information technology LAW in india”

By :
Shailesh kumar
10th semester
Roll no:164140060

Under the guidance of

DR. Vijeta Dua Tandon

INDEX
 S.NO TITLE PA TEACHER’S
. GE SIGN.
NO.
1 Introduction 1
2 History of cyber law in India 1
3 Cyber law and IT act in India 2
4 Approach of IT Act 3
5 Effect of IT act 6
6 What cyber laws might teach 11
7 Bibliography 12
8
9

Acknowledgement

This project is as result of dedicated effort. It gives me immense pleasure to prepare this project report
on “Effect of Information Technology Law in india”
I Would like to thank our project guide Dr. Vijeta Dua Tandon for consultative help and
constructive suggestion on the matter in this project . I would like to thanks our parents and our
colleagues who have helped me in making this project a successful one.

Thanks

Introduction
In today’s techno-savvy environment, the world is becoming more and more digitally sophisticated
and so are the crimes. Internet was initially developed as a research and information sharing tool and
was in an unregulated manner. As the time passed by it became more transactional with e-business, e-
commerce, e-governance and e-procurement etc. All legal issues related to internet crime are dealt
with through cyber laws. As the number of internet users is on the rise, the need for cyber laws and
their application has also gathered great momentum.

History of cyber law in India

The information Technology Act is an outcome of the resolution dated 30th January 1997 of the
General Assembly of the United Nations, which adopted the Model Law on Electronic Commerce,
adopted the Model Law on Electronic Commerce on International Trade Law. This resolution
recommended, interalia, that all states give favourable consideration to the said Model Law while
revising enacting new law, so that uniformity may be observed in the laws, of the various cyber-
nations, applicable to alternatives to paper based methods of communication and storage of
information.

The Department of Electronics (DoE) in July 1998 drafted the bill. However, it could only be
introduced in the House on December 16, 1999 (after a gap of almost one and a half years) when the
new IT Ministry was formed. It underwent substantial alteration, with the Commerce Ministry making
suggestions related to e-commerce and matters pertaining to World Trade Organization (WTO)
obligations. The Ministry of Law and Company Affairs then vetted this joint draft.

After its introduction in the House, the bill was referred to the 42-member Parliamentary Standing
Committee following demands from the Members. The Standing Committee made several
suggestions to be incorporated into the bill.

However, only those suggestions that were approved by the Ministry of Information Technology were
incorporated. One of the suggestions that were highly debated upon was that a cyber café owner must
maintain a register to record the names and addresses of all people visiting his café and also a list of
the websites that they surfed. This suggestion was made as an attempt to curb cyber crime and to
facilitate speedy locating of a cyber criminal. However, at

The same time it was ridiculed, as it would invade upon a net surfer’s privacy and would not be
economically viable. Finally, this suggestion was dropped by the IT Ministry in its final draft.

The Union Cabinet approved the bill on May 13, 2000 and on May 17, 2000; both the houses of the
Indian Parliament passed the Information Technology Bill. The Bill received the assent of the
President on 9th June 2000 and came to 18 be known as the Information Technology Act, 2000. The
Act came into force on 17th October 2000.
With the passage of time, as technology developed further and new methods of committing crime
using Internet & computers surfaced, the need was felt to amend the IT Act, 2000 to insert new kinds
of cyber offences and plug in other loopholes that posed hurdles in the effective enforcement of the IT
Act, 2000.

This led to the passage of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 which was made
effective from 27 October 2009. The IT (Amendment) Act, 2008 has brought marked changes in the
IT Act, 2000 on several counts.

Cyber Law & Information technology act in india

In India the cyber laws are synonymous with the Information Technology Act, 2000. The IT
revolution, in India started in mid 1980s and since then it has been moving like a juggernaut. While
India was riding the information superhighway without any traffic rules, other countries in the world
were framing rules and regulations to control access to Internet and also for business over the
worldwide web. Since Internet is not confined within the geographical limits of a country, one of the
United Nations agencies ‘United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’ (UNCITRAL)
proposed a certain level of uniformity of laws in all member countries. To this effect, the Model Law
on Electronic Commerce was adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law
(UNCITRAL) in its twenty-ninth session. Later a resolution of the General Assembly recommended
that all States give favourable consideration to the Model Law on Electronic Commerce when they
enact or revise their laws, in view of the need for uniformity of the law applicable to alternatives to
paper-based methods of communication and storage of information.

In India, the then Department of Electronics (DoE) was given the mandate to have an enactment in
place, on the lines of the UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Electronic Commerce soon after its adoption
by the UN General Assembly. It was a foresight on the part of the Government of India to initiate the
entire process of enacting India’s first ever information technology legislation soon after its adoption
by the UN General Assembly.

There were two reasons:

 To facilitate to the development of a secure regulatory environment for electronic commerce by

providing a legal infrastructure to govern electronic contracts, authenticity and integrity of
electronic transactions, the use of digital signatures and other issues related to electronic
commerce; and
 To showcase India’s growing IT knowledgebase and the role of Government in safeguarding and
promoting IT sector.
 India enacted the Information Technology Act, 2000 based on the UNCITRAL’s Model Law on
Electronic Commerce. It received the assent of the President on the June 9, 2000 and came into force
on October 17, 2000. It is important to understand that while enacting the Information Technology
Act, 2000, the legislative intent has been not to ignore the national perspective of information
technology and also to ensure that it should have an international perspective as advocated by the said
Model Law.

Approach of the Information Technology Act, 2000

Since the Information Technology Act, 2000 is based on the UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Electronic
Commerce, which provides for “functional equivalent approach”. It is based on an analysis of the
purposes and functions of the traditional paper-based requirement with a view to determining how
those purposes or functions could be fulfilled through electronic-commerce techniques. The idea is
that the adoption of the functional-equivalent approach should not result in imposing on users of
electronic commerce more stringent standards of security (and the related costs) than in a paper-based
environment.

For example, it treats paper document and its electronic equivalent (electronic record) at par. That is,
if a paper document is admissible in a court of law, then its functional equivalent in the ‘electronic
form’, i.e., the electronic record should also be admissible in the court of law.

Aims and Objectives of the Information Technology Act, 2000

The preamble of the Information Technology Act, 2000 reads “ An Act to provide legal recognition
for transactions carried out by means of electronic communication, commonly referred to as
“electronic commerce”’ which involve the use of alternatives to paper-based methods of
communication and storage of information, to facilitate electronic filing of documents with the
Government agencies”.

 The aims and objectives of the Act make it:

 A facilitating Act,
 An enabling Act, and
 A regulating Act

(a) A Facilitating Act

The Information Technology Act, 2000 is a facilitating Act as it facilitates both e-commerce and e-
governance. Interestingly, the UNCITRAL Model Law of E-commerce on which this Act is based has
made no reference to e-governance. But it was the collective wisdom of the legislature, which saw the
necessity of introducing concepts like e-governance in this Act. Sections form the basic law related to
electronic governance rights, which have been conferred to the persons and the Government(s) – both
Central and State Governments. It is applicable to the whole of India, including the State of Jammu
and Kashmir.

It is important to understand that the Information Technology Act, 2000 is the first enactment of its
kind in India, which grants ‘e-governance rights’ to the citizens of India.

(b) An Enabling Act

The Information Technology Act, 2000 is an enabling Act as it enables a legal regime of electronic
records and digital signatures. That is, in order to be called legally binding all electronic records,
communications or transactions must meet the fundamental requirements, one authenticity of the
sender to enable the recipient (or relying party) to determine who really sent the message, two
message’s integrity, the recipient must be able to determine whether or not the message received has
been modified en route or is incomplete and third, non-repudiation, the ability to ensure that the
sender cannot falsely deny sending the message, nor falsely deny the contents of the message.

The Act provides for Digital signatures, which may be considered functional equivalent to physical
world signatures capable of meeting all the fundamental requirements, like authenticity of the sender,
message integrity and non-repudiation. Digital signature is a misnomer. It does not mean scanning the
handwritten signatures electronically. In fact by applying digital signatures one may actually
transform an electronic message into an alphanumeric code. It requires a key pair (private key for
encryption and public key for decryption) and a hash function (algorithm).

(c) A Regulating Act

The Information Technology Act, 2000 is a regulating Act as it regulates cyber crimes. As stated
above, cyber crime is a collective term encompassing both ‘cyber contraventions’ and ‘cyber
offences’. The Act not only demarcates contraventions from offences, but also provides a separate
redressal mechanism for both.

The classification of cyber contraventions and cyber offences is as follows:

 Cyber Contraventions under the Act Cyber Offences under the Act

Deals primarily with unauthorized Deals with computer, computer

access to computer, computer system system or computer network related
or computer network serious offences

Section 43 (a) to (h) Sections 65-74

May result in civil prosecution May result in criminal prosecution

Judicial proceedings before the Judicial proceedings to be held before

Adjudicating Officer the appropriate ‘Court’ as per the
nature of offence, whether cognizable
or non-cognizable

Provision of appeal Provision of appeal

Power to investigate any Power to investigate any offence lies

contravention lies with the with the police officer not below the
Adjudicating Officer, Controller or rank of Deputy Superintendent of
any officer authorized by him Police

Offender liable to pay damages by Offender punishable with

way of compensation not exceeding imprisonment term or fine or with
one crore rupees to the person so both
affected.

Table: Cyber Contraventions and Cyber Offences under the Act

With the enactment of the Information Technology Act, 2000, in India, the law has taken a quantum
jump to include even the intangibles under its purview. This Act is a proactive piece of legislation and
is not only in tune with the UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Electronic Commerce but it also unfolds
various aspects of information technology to promote efficient delivery of Government services by
means of reliable electronic records.

Cyber laws are new legal resources to check violations in cyberspace. It would be wrong to treat them
differently from the other widely prevalent physical laws. All laws flow from the Constitution of a
country and cyber laws (of a country) are no different! The aims & objectives, scope, approach,
criteria of cyber law may be different but that does not mean that they are superior to the laws
applicable previously. The legal construction of cyber law provisions is no different from other
statutes, codes and enactments. The idea is to maintain uniformity with other statutory provisions.
Cyber laws may have been given a special status by the lawmakers but that does not mean its
superiority in a legal system.

Effects of the Information Technology Act, 2000

The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, specifies the acts which have been made punishable.
Since the primary objective of this Act is to create an enabling environment for commercial use of
I.T., certain omissions and commissions of criminals while using computers have not been included.
With the legal recognition of Electronic Records and the amendments made in the several sections of
the IPC vide the IT Act, 2000, several offences having bearing on cyber-arena are also registered
under the appropriate sections of the IPC. During the year 2003, 60 cases were registered under IT
Act as compared to 70 cases during the previous year thereby reporting a decline of 14.3 percent in
2003 over 2002. Of the total 60 cases registered under IT Act 2000, around 33 percent (20 cases)
relate to Obscene Publication / Transmission in electronic form, normally known as cases of cyber
pornography. 17 persons were arrested for committing such offences during 2003.

There were 21 cases of Hacking of computer systems wherein 18 persons were arrested in 2003. Of
the total (21) Hacking cases, the cases relating to Loss/Damage of computer resource/utility under Sec
66(1) of the IT Act were to the tune of 62 percent (13 cases) and that related to Hacking under Section
66(2) of IT Act were 38 percent (8cases).

During 2003, a total of 411 cases were registered under IPC Sections as compared to 738 such cases
during 2002 thereby reporting a significant decline of 44 percent in 2003 over 2002. Andhra Pradesh
reported more than half of such cases (218 out of 411) (53 percent). Of the 411 cases registered under
IPC, majority of the crimes fall under 3 categories viz. Criminal Breach of Trust or Fraud (269),
Forgery (89) and Counterfeiting (53).

Though, these offences fall under the traditional IPC crimes, the cases had the cyber tones wherein
computer, Internet or its related aspects were present in the crime and hence they were categorised as
Cyber Crimes under IPC.

Crime is no longer limited to space, time or a group of people. Cyber space creates moral, civil and
criminal wrongs. It has now given a new way to express criminal tendencies. Back in 1990, less than
100,000 people were able to log on to the Internet worldwide. Now around 500 million people are
hooked up to surf the net around the globe.

Law enforcement personnel understand the criminal mindset and know the basics of gathering
evidence and bringing offenders to justice. IT personnel understand computers and networks, how
they work, and how to track down information on them. Each has half of the key to defeating the
cyber criminal.

IT professionals need good definitions of cybercrime in order to know when (and what) to report to
police, but law enforcement agencies must have statutory definitions of specific crimes in order to
charge a criminal with an offense. The first step in specifically defining individual cybercrimes is to
sort all the acts that can be considered cybercrimes into organized categories.

Until recently, many information technology (IT) professionals lacked awareness and interest in the
cyber crime phenomenon. In many cases, law enforcement officers have lacked the tools needed to
tackle the problem; old laws didn’t quite fit the crimes being committed, new laws hadn’t quite caught
up to the reality of what was happening, and there were few court precedents to look to for guidance.
Furthermore, debates over privacy issues hampered the ability of enforcement agents to gather the
evidence needed to prosecute these new cases. Finally, there was a certain amount of antipathy—or at
the least, distrust— between the two most important players in any effective fight against cyber crime:
law enforcement agencies and computer professionals. Yet close cooperation between the two is
crucial if we are to control the cyber crime problem and make the Internet a safe “place” for its users.

According to United Nations’ Definition of Cybercrime

Cybercrime spans not only state but national boundaries as well. Perhaps we should look to
international organizations to provide a standard definition of the crime. At the Tenth United Nations
Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, in a workshop devoted to the issues
of crimes related to computer networks, cybercrime was broken into two categories and defined thus:

 Cybercrime in a narrow sense (computer crime): Any illegal behavior directed by means of
electronic operations that targets the security of computer systems and the data processed by
them.
 Cybercrime in a broader sense (computer-related crime): Any illegal behavior committed
by means of, or in relation to, a computer system or network, including such crimes as illegal
possession and offering or distributing information by means of a computer system or network.

Of course, these definitions are complicated by the fact that an act may be illegal in one nation but not
in another. Cyber Crimes can also be categorized in many ways

1. Cyber Crimes against Persons:

There are certain offences who affect the personality of individuals can be defined as:
 Harassment via E-Mails: It is very common type of harassment through sending letters,
attachments of files & folders i.e. via e-mails. At present harassment is common as usage of social
sites i.e. Facebook, Twitter etc. increasing day by day.
 Cyber-Stalking: It means expressed or implied a physical threat that creates fear through the use
to computer technology such as internet, e-mail, phones, text messages, webcam, websites or
videos.
 Dissemination of Obscene Material: It includes Indecent exposure/ Pornography (basically child
pornography), hosting of web site containing these prohibited materials. These obscene matters
may cause harm to the mind of the adolescent and tend to deprave or corrupt their mind.
 Defamation: It is an act of imputing any person with intent to lower down the dignity of the
person by hacking his mail account and sending some mails with using vulgar language to
unknown persons mail account.
 Hacking: It means unauthorized control/access over computer system and act of hacking
completely destroys the whole data as well as computer programmers. Hackers usually hacks
telecommunication and mobile network.
 Cracking: It is amongst the gravest cyber crimes known till date. It is a dreadful feeling to know
that a stranger has broken into your computer systems without your knowledge and consent and
has tampered with precious confidential data and information.
 E-Mail Spoofing: A spoofed e-mail may be said to be one, which misrepresents its origin. It
shows its origin to be different from which actually it originates.
 SMS Spoofing: Spoofing is a blocking through spam which means the unwanted uninvited
messages. Here an offender steals identity of another in the form of mobile phone number and
sending SMS via internet and receiver gets the SMS from the mobile phone number of the victim.
It is very serious cyber crime against any individual.
 Carding: It means false ATM cards i.e. Debit and Credit cards used by criminals for their
monetary benefits through withdrawing money from the victim’s bank account. There is always
unauthorized use of ATM cards in this type of cyber crimes.
 Cheating & Fraud: It means the person who is doing the act of cyber crime i.e. stealing
password and data storage has done it with having guilty mind which leads to fraud and cheating.
 Child Pornography: It involves the use of computer networks to create, distribute, or access
materials that sexually exploit underage children.
 Assault by Threat: refers to threatening a person with fear for their lives or lives of their families
through the use of a computer network i.e. E-mail, videos or phones.

2. Crimes against Persons Property:

As there is rapid growth in the international trade where businesses and consumers are increasingly
using computers to create, transmit and to store information in the electronic form instead of
traditional paper documents. There are certain offences who affect person’s property which are as
follows:

 Intellectual Property Crimes: Intellectual property consists of a bundle of rights. Any unlawful
act by which the owner is deprived completely or partially of his rights is an offence. The
common form of IPR violation may be said to be software piracy, infringement of copyright,
trademark, patents, designs and service mark violation, theft of computer source code, etc.
 Cyber Squatting: It means where two persons claim for the same Domain Name either by
claiming that they had registered the name first on by right of using it before the other or using
something similar to that previously. For example two similar names i.e. www.yahoo.com and
www.yaahoo.com.
 Cyber Vandalism: Vandalism means deliberately destroying or damaging property of another.
Thus cyber vandalism means destroying or damaging the data when a network service is stopped
or disrupted. It may include within its purview any kind of physical harm done to the computer of
any person. These acts may take the form of the theft of a computer, some part of a computer or a
peripheral attached to the computer.
 Hacking Computer System: Hacking attacks those included Famous Twitter, blogging platform
by unauthorized access/control over the computer. Due to the hacking activity there will be loss of
data as well as computer. Also research especially indicates that those attacks were not mainly
intended for financial gain too and to diminish the reputation of particular person or company.
 Transmitting Virus: Viruses are programs that attach themselves to a computer or a file and then
circulate themselves to other files and to other computers on a network. They usually affect the
data on a computer, either by altering or deleting it. Worm attacks plays major role in affecting
the computerize system of the individuals.
 Cyber Trespass: It means to access someone’s computer without the right authorization of the
owner and does not disturb, alter, misuse, or damage data or system by using wireless internet
connection.
 Internet Time Thefts: Basically, Internet time theft comes under hacking. It is the use by an
unauthorized person, of the Internet hours paid for by another person. The person who gets access
to someone else’s ISP user ID and password, either by hacking or by gaining access to it by
illegal means, uses it to access the Internet without the other person’s knowledge. You can
identify time theft if your Internet time has to be recharged often, despite infrequent usage.

3. Cybercrimes against Government:

There are certain offences done by group of persons intending to threaten the international
governments by using internet facilities. It includes:

 Cyber Terrorism: Cyber terrorism is a major burning issue in the domestic as well as global
concern. The common form of these terrorist attacks on the Internet is by distributed denial of
service attacks, hate websites and hate e-mails, attacks on sensitive computer networks etc.
Cyber terrorism activities endanger the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.
 Cyber Warfare: It refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It
is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare although
this analogy is controversial for both its accuracy and its political motivation.
 Distribution of pirated software: It means distributing pirated software from one computer to
another intending to destroy the data and official records of the government.
 Possession of Unauthorized Information: It is very easy to access any information by the
terrorists with the aid of internet and to possess that information for political, religious, social,
ideological objectives.

4. Cybercrimes against Society at large:

An unlawful act done with the intention of causing harm to the cyberspace will affect large number of
persons. These offences include:

 Child Pornography: It involves the use of computer networks to create, distribute, or access
materials that sexually exploit underage children. It also includes activities concerning indecent
exposure and obscenity.
 Cyber Trafficking: It may be trafficking in drugs, human beings, arms weapons etc. which
affects large number of persons. Trafficking in the cyberspace is also a gravest crime.
 Online Gambling: Online fraud and cheating is one of the most lucrative businesses that are
growing today in the cyber space. There are many cases that have come to light are those
pertaining to credit card crimes, contractual crimes, offering jobs, etc.
 Financial Crimes: This type of offence is common as there is rapid growth in the users of
networking sites and phone networking where culprit will try to attack by sending bogus mails or
messages through internet. Ex: Using credit cards by obtaining password illegally.
 Forgery: It means to deceive large number of persons by sending threatening mails as online
business transactions are becoming the habitual need of today’s life style.

What Cyber Laws Might Teach?

The purpose of studying cyber laws is crucial from today’s perspective, as technology has become
part of our everyday existence. Study of cyber laws would provide:
(a) Sense of Security

The study of cyber law provides a sense of security to the learner. It brings in a level of confidence in
the sense that it would make the learner knowledgeable about what are his rights in cyberspace and
would become aware of what constitutes a wrongful behavior. Further, he would become aware of the
legal remedies available to him in case of violation of his rights in cyberspace. It would help the
learner to appreciate technology as a law abiding citizen.

(b) Global Recognition

Cyber law is a common usage term in the legal parlance. It includes legislations such as: Information
Technology law, Computer law, Internet law, E-commerce law, E-transactions law, Digital signature
law, Electronic Signature law etc.

Irrespective of the nationality of cyber law legislation(s) presently available in the world, the fact is
that all such legislations are based on mother law, i.e., The United Nations Commission on
International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on E-commerce, 1996. It makes Cyber law
education scalable, globally. In other words, knowledge of cyber laws of one country would help in
understanding similar laws elsewhere.

Value Addition

To a learner, knowledge of cyber laws would be a value addition, irrespective of his professional
qualifications and would certainly help the learner to move up on the value chain. Cyber law
education does not call for any specialized knowledge either in law or technology. It is a valuable
resource to meet challenges and explore opportunities in the global village. Learning about cyber laws
is an opportunity to be in sync with the present day world. Many believe that cyberspace simply
cannot be regulated.

They argue that behavior in cyberspace is beyond government’s reach. The anonymity and multi-
jurisdictionality of cyberspace makes control by government in cyberspace impossible. This belief
about cyberspace is wrong. It is wrong to assume that its architecture cannot be changed or that
government cannot take steps to change this architecture.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reference of website:

 https://legaldesire.com/cyber-law-in-india-meaning-introduction-history-need-important-terms-
and-amendments/
 https://www.tutorialspoint.com/information_security_cyber_law/introduction.htm
 https://www.legalbites.in/cyber-law-the-information-technology-act-and-its-application/
 https://www.myadvo.in/blog/what-is-the-cyber-law-in-india/
 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4cd0bdb1-da7d-4a04-bd9c-30881dd3eadf
 https://www.advocatekhoj.com/library/bareacts/informationtechnology/81.php?
Title=Information%20Technology%20Act,%202000&STitle=Act%20to%20have%20overriding
%20effect