The Information Technology Act and What It Was For

In one line

The Act extends to the whole of India and to an offence under it committed anywhere in the world by anyone, it came into force on 17 October 2000, and it does not apply at all to the four kinds of document listed in its First Schedule.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: by section 1(2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 the Act extends to the whole of India and, save as otherwise provided in the Act, applies also to any offence or contravention thereunder committed outside India by any person.

Why the Act was passed

It was an Act about commerce, and the offences came second. The statute gives legal recognition to electronic records and electronic signatures, so that a contract, a filing or a Government record made electronically is not a nullity. The penal provisions occupy Chapter XI and were substantially rewritten in 2009.

That order of priorities explains the shape of the statute. Sections 3 to 42 are about electronic records, signatures, certifying authorities and subscribers. Sections 43 to 47 are civil. Chapter XI, sections 65 onwards, is the criminal part, and its numbering is full of letters because the offences students study most were inserted later.

It follows the international model. The Act was drafted on the pattern of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Model Law on Electronic Commerce, which is why it speaks of originators, addressees, attribution, acknowledgment, despatch and receipt in the language of a commercial code rather than a penal one.

The provision itself

Section 1(1). "This Act may be called the Information Technology Act, 2000."

Section 1(2). It extends to the whole of India and, save as otherwise provided in the Act, it applies also to any offence or contravention thereunder committed outside India by any person.

Section 1(3). It comes into force on such date as the Central Government may by notification appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different provisions; a reference in any provision to the commencement of the Act means the commencement of that provision. The Act's own footnote to this sub-section gives the date: 17 October 2000, by notification No. G.S.R. 788(E) dated 17 October 2000, published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, section 3(ii).

Section 1(4). Nothing in the Act applies to documents or transactions specified in the First Schedule. The proviso lets the Central Government amend that Schedule by notification, by adding or deleting entries.

Section 1(5). Every notification under sub-section (4) shall be laid before each House of Parliament.

Sub-sections (4) and (5) are not original. The footnote records that they were substituted by Act 10 of 2009, section 3, with effect from 27 October 2009. Before that the exclusions were written into the section itself.