Comments of Naavi on the Amendments Proposed to ITA

The legal history of ITA 2000 starts with the draft of E-Commerce Act 1998 made available some time in 1998 based on the UNCITRAL Model law on E-Commerce. Now with the passage of the Information Technology Act 2000 Amendment Bill in December 2008, the legislation has reached a significant stage in the development of Cyber Laws in India. During this journey, Naavi.org has been taking several steps towards disseminating information on the law through the website. These are collated in this section.

The Information Technology Act -2000 Amendment Bill was introduced in the Parliament on December 15, 2006. This was called the Information Technology Act Amendment Bill 2006. (ITAA 2006). This was also passed by the Cabinet Committee. However a standing committee of the Parliament under the chairmanship of Mr Nikhil Kumar aborted the final clearance with an emphatic rejection of many of the controversial propositions which Naavi.org had been pointing out for nearly two years. The Bill was therefore returned to the department of changes.

It is understood that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) has prepared a new draft of the Information Technology Act 2000 Amendment Bill 2006 and will be tabling it in the next winter session of the parliament between October 17 to November 21, 2008. We hope that MCIT is addressing the concerns expressed by the Standing Committee while rejecting the bill at the first instance.

The Information Technology Act 2000 Amendment Bill is expected to be presented in the session starting on December 10th. In the meantime, the Mumbai terror attacks on 26th November has introduced a sense of urgency to amendments which address the issue of "Cyber Terrorism". (See comments here)

The Information Technology Act 2000 Amendment Bill was presented in the Parliament on 15th December 2008, passed in Loksabha on 22nd and in Rajyasabha on 23rd. There were no debates in either of the houses which were completely engrossed in the discussions around Mr A R Antulay's remarks on Mumbai terrorist attack. The Bill needs to get the Presidential assent and has to be notified. An analysis of the final Bill as passed would be presented when the copy of the Bill as passed is available in the public domain.

A Copy of the standing committee report which records the deliberations is available here.

The copies of ITA 2008 along with section to section comparison with ITA 2000 and ITA 2006 are now available on this site. This has been constructed out of ITA 2000 (as amended earlier upto 2003), the Information technology Amendment Bill 2006 presented in the Parliament on 15th December 2006, and the deliberations in Loksabha on December 22, 2008. Use the links in the left menu. These are the first copies of these documents available in India. The MCIT website also does not have current copies of ITA 2000 or the amendments. In case you find mistakes, please inform naavi@naavi.org. We await information on Presidential assent and further rules and notifications.

ITA Amendment Bill 2008 was signed into an Act by the President on 5th February 2009, through a Gazette Notification

Government of India is now in the process of framing the rules which are required under the amendments. On completion of this exercise, the date of effect of the amendments would be notified. It is expected that this may be completed by end of June 2009. Draft Rules are available presently here.

After a long wait, finally the Information technology Amendment act 2008 has been notified for effectiveness with effect from October 27, 2009. As per the PIB release the notification covers rules pertaining to sections 52,54,69,69A,69B, and 70B has been notified. These relate to the Cyber Appellate Tribunal and CERT related provisions. These are the first notifications under the Amendment. We await further information and a copy of the Gazette notification for understanding the full impact of the notification.

Rules were notified under Sections 43A (Sensitive Personal information), 79 (intermediaries), Cyber Cafe Regulations (also under Sec 79) and Section 6A (Electronic Service Delivery) on April 11, 2011. ( All rules are available here)

GOI provided some clarifications on Sec 43A rules issued on 11th April 2011 essentially indicating that the responsibility for obtaining "Consent" would be on the body corporate that deals with the persons whose information is being collected. Similarly it was clarified that under Section 79, the interpretation of objectionable content would be left to the Courts. Refer here

After several arrests made by Police for posting of objectionable content on Facebook and Twitter, the Supreme Court considered the constitutional validity of Section 66A regarding whether the section violated the principles of Freedom of Speech guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. Simultaneously the validity of Section 79(3) under which intermediaries were required to remove objectionable content as well as the provisions of Section 69A on the powers of the Government to block websites were also considered. The Supreme Court came to the conclusion that Section 66A was violative of the Constitution under article 19(1) and upheld the validity of the other two sections with a read down of Section 79(3). Refer here for details

Amendments to ITA 2000 made in 2008 with rules notified in 2009 and 2011 were considered as reasonable regulations for Data Protection until the historic judgement of a Nine Member bench of Supreme Court on Privacy (Puttaswamy Judgement) declared "Privacy to be a fundamental right" under the Indian Constitution. Since this judgement on 24th August 2017, there was a clamour for "Privacy Laws in India" with specific reference to laws related to Information Privacy. The Personal Data Protection Act 2018 (PDPA 2018) was introduced in draft form of the bill on 27th July 2018 marking a landmark legislation that will transform the digital regulatory landscape in India.

P.S:PDPA 2018 was replaced first by PDPB 2019 and DPA 2021 and now the DPDPB 2022

On December 20, 2018 the Ministry of Home Affairs released an order designating 10 agencies under Section 69. A hue and cry has been raised by the political opposition that this order is an attempt at Mass Surveillance etc., While we hold that the charges are misplaced, (Refer articles here), the controversy has raised awareness of the existence of Section 69 which dates back to 27th October 2009. We call this the second awakening since the first awakening of the society to the existence of ITA 2000 occurred when the Section 43A rules were notified on 11th April 2011.

Both controversies are being referred to the Supreme Court also as "unconstitutional" and we need to await the outcome.

The December 2018 draft guidelines got revised further in 2021 following the Twitter's response to disregard the Section 69 Guideline issued by the Government and along with the Ethical Digital Media Guidelines, a new guideline was issued and was also immediately notified on 25th February 2021.

Excluded Documents under Schedule I modified

On October 4th, 2022 through a notification the documents related to "sale or conveyance of imovable propery or any interest in such propery" has been removed from the list of excluded documents. In view of this now lease agreements can be signed in electronic form. Immovable property sale or partition deeds may also be executed in electronic form.
Refer here for details

October 4, 2022

Intermediary Guidlines Amended

The Intermediary guidelines and Digital media Ethics Code Rules 2021 of February 25 2021 was amended to define the "Grievance Appellate Committee" envisaged under the rules

Refer here for details:

October 28, 2022

A Bill titled Jan Viswas (Amendments of Provisions) Bill 2022 has been introduced in the Parliament to amend several provisions of ITA 2000/8 to decriminalize some offences. Details are available here: In these amendments Section 66A has been formally deleted. Civil penalties have been increased in many sections. Criminal punishments have been deleted in Sections 67C,68,69B,72,72A, reduced under 70B. (Bill to be passed)

December 23, 2022

The Minister of State, MeitY launched a public consultation program on the Digital India Act 2023 with a broad outline. (Refer here)

9th March 2023

The Intermediary Guidlines were updated with the regulations of online gaming industry and a consolidated guideline copy was released (Copy here)

6th April 2023