Do You Know The Glorious History of Internet In India ??

Information Technology Act one of the outcome of the resolution which was to be dated on 30th January 1997 from  the General Assembly of the United Nations, which adopts the Model Law on Electronic Commerce,  Model Law on Electronic Commerce on International Trade Law .

This type of resolution recommends, inter alia, that all states have to give favorable consideration to the said Model Law as adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nation while it revise enactment for new law, so that the uniformity of the laws may be observed by the various cyber-nations, applicable for the alternative to paper based methods of communication and storage of the information.

The Department of Electronics (DOE) in July 1998 drafted a bill .

However, the bill 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 in our country. It goes through substantial alteration, with the Commerce Ministry making suggestions which was related to E-commerce and matters pertaining to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with their obligations. The Ministry of Law and Company Affairs had vetted this joint draft. After having introduction in the House, the bill was referred to the 42-members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee demands the following things from the Members.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee made several suggestions to be incorporated to the bill. However, the suggestions that were approved by the (MIT) Ministry of Information Technology were incorporated.

One of the best suggestions that was highly debated upon was a cybercafe the owner must have to maintain a register to record the names and addresses of all those people who had visited his cafe and also a list of all the websites which was surfed by the visitors.

This suggestion was made as an small attempt to curb the cyber-crime and to facilitate speedy locating of a cyber-criminal as well.

However, at the same time it was being reticulated, as it would invade upon the privacy of a net surfer’s which is not economically viable. And finally, this was the suggestion which was being dropped by the IT Ministry in its final draft.  The Central Cabinet approved the bill on May 13, 2000 and on May 17, 2000; both the houses of the Parliament of India passed the Information Technology Bill.

The Bill received the assent of the President of India on 9th June 2000 and came to be known as the Information Technology Act, 2000. The IT 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.

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

Information Technology Act, 2000 is India’s mother legislation regulating the use of the computer systems and computer networks as the data and other information in the electronic format.

This legislation for the information technology Act has touched varied aspects pertaining to electronic authentication like digital signatures i.e., (Electronic), cyber-crimes and liability of the network of the service providers.

Well the Preamble of the Information Technology Act itself states that it aims at providing legal recognition for transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other 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 and aims at facilitating electronic filing of documents with the Government agencies.

The Act was amended by the Information Technology Amendment Bill, 2008 which was to passed in the Lok Sabha on 22nd December, 2008 and in Rajya Sabha on 23rd December, 2008.

Further it received the assent of the President on 5th February 2009 and was notified with effect from 27/10/2009.

The main aim of IT Act of the Year 2000 was to develop and to promote the IT industry, regulate e-commerce, facilitate e-governance and prevent these from the cyber-crime.

The Act also sought to be foster security for practices in India which would serve the country in a global context.

The Amendment was just created to address the issues as the original bill failed to cover and to accommodate further development of  Information Technology  and related to that security it concerns through  the original law was passed.

The Information Technology Act, 2000 consists of 90 sections spread over 13 chapters [Sections 91, 92, 93 and 94 of the principal Act were omitted by the IT (Amendment) Act 2008 and has 2 schedules.

[Schedules III and IV were omitted by the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008].