India became independent on 15th August, 1947. Since then it has been struggling through to make its stand in the world. Many new technologies were brought and many new are still are to be found. One such revolution was brought about by the introduction of the 'internet', which is till date considered as the pool of knowledge...the deeper you go in, the more you learn about your world, about yourself.

But who could think of the time when this rich source of knowledge will be misused for criminal activities. There are many such disturbing activities that occurred in past and demanded of some rules and regulations urgently, some set definite patterns that can be put forward while carrying out any business transaction over the net, ranging from a simple friendly e-mail to carrying out the whole set of your work, without which it may go wild and beyond control and it can be used as a tool for the very destruction of mankind.

It was at this point of time that the government of India felt the need to enact the relevant cyber laws which can regulate the internet in India. It denotes all aspects, issues and the legal consequences on the Internet, the World Wide Web and cyber space.

There are numerous factors that stand behind this decision of government.

1. Although India has a very well defined legal system that has been developed with the aim cover all possible situations and cases that have occurred or might take place in future, but it lacks when it comes to the newly developed internet technology. With the arrival of internet many new complex and ticklish issues cropped up which could not be interpreted (cleared) in the light of existing laws and thus necessitated the enactment of the cyber laws.

2. Also, with the growth of the internet, it became important to give some legal recognition to what is going on the internet. Internet has grown up as one of the dominating resources to carry out one's business in today's world. Most of the world fame companies prefer to outsource their business processes, which has become possible because of the internet. How come a company can carry out its business safely and securely when there is no legal validity or sanction to the activities in the cyberspace?? It is now with the emergence of cyber laws the concept of digital signatures and digital records have come up, with which a business organization can legally carry out its business process; or else even the e-mails were not given the legal recognition in the country.

3. With the growth of the internet and many associated business and friendly activities, grew the cyber crime and cyber terrorism. Here the two terms hold an entirely different meaning. While the cyber crime refers to some activity done with the criminal intentions aiming to harm or completely destruct ones workplace or something similar with or without the use of computer; cyber terrorism is defined as a premeditated use of disruptive activities or the threat thereof, in cyber space, with the intention to further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives. The cyber criminals can employ conventional activities or could use some innovative methods and develop some new ways to achieve destroying their target places. Such crimes may include Virus/worm attack, E-mail spoofing¸ Email bombing, Salami attack or Web Jacking.

4. There were certain issues that required either the existing laws to be amended as they were outdated in the present scenario of the world or required certain new clauses to be added up in the existing cyber laws to check the various criminal activities going on the internet. Among various such cases is the MMS porn case in which the CEO of bazee.com was arrested for allegedly selling the MMS clips involving school children on its website. Then there was a case where the two actors threatened the Mid-day daily with a defamation suit when the newspaper published the pictures of the Indian actor kissing her boyfriend at the Bombay nightspot. Also Delhi Police has recently taken Krishan Kumar into the judicial custody for 6 days for illegally using the internet account of Col. (Retd.) J.S. Bajwa.

All such activities taking place around the country needed a new discipline that could provide everyone with the safe and secure environment where an illegal encroachment of some cyber criminal, as law calls it, to be prosecuted and punished for his crime. Also these laws were needed to lay the foundation of the legally recognized rules and regulations that a company or an individual must follow while carrying out his business…giving even the business processes carried out by this newly evolved (hot) media even the legal status.

Keeping all these factors in to the consideration, Indian Parliament passed the Information Technology Bill on 17th May 2000 which is known as the Information Technology Act, 2000. It talks about the Cyber laws and forms the legal framework for electronic records and other activities done by electronic means/ways.

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Last update : 23-11-2007 10:25

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