• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

CII welcomes IT Bill but...

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, June 4

THE Information Technology Bill 1999 is a great achievement and a remarkable step ahead in the right direction, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has said.

A paper titled IT Bill 1999: What does it mean for the corporate sector prepared by Cyberlaws.Net for CII points out that the Bill opens up for the country the vast possibilities of e-commerce by giving recognition to transactions carried out through mea ns of electronic interchange. The Bill also allows alternatives to paper-based methods of communication and storage of information.

Cyberlaws.Net has also outlined several implications of the IT Bill for domestic corporates, including the fact that corporates will need to be more careful while writing e-mails, whether outside the company or within, as e-mail will now be valid and a l egal form of communication which can be produced in a court of law. Even intra-company notes and memos will come within the ambit of the IT Bill and be admissible as evidence in a court of law.

Further, companies will now be able to carry out electronic commerce in a big way, as the Bill provides the necessary legal infrastructure. The Bill recognises digital signature, and so transactions can now be carried out online. The growth of electronic commerce was impeded because there was no legal infrastructure to regulate commercial transactions online, a situation which has now changed.

The paper points out that the Bill also provides corporates with a new opportunity _ that of being certifying authorities for issuing digital signature certificates. This will become a large business opportunity in the near future, the paper adds.

Besides, the provision of allowing companies to file documents with Government bodies in electronic form, provided norms prescribed by the Government are followed, will result in saving of cost and time for corporate India, the study has said. ``Corporat es in India can now breathe a sigh of relief as the IT Bill has defined various cyber crimes and declared them penal offences punishable with imprisonment and fine,'' the study points out.

However, Cyberlaws.Net points out that implementation of the Bill is still an area of concern. ``The Bill purports to be applicable not only to offences committed in India, but also to offences committed outside. However, it is not clear how the Bill wil l apply outside India,'' it has said.

Further, how the adjudicating officers (AOs) will decide whether a contravention of the Bill has taken place is also a matter that has not been clearly defined. ``Besides, the territorial jurisdictions of the proposed AO and the Cyber Regulations Appella te Tribunal have not been defined.''