Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India had put up during draft rules under section 43A and 79 of Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 43A provides for compensation for failure to protect senry sitive personal data by body corporates, who are expected to implement and maintain reasonable security practices and procedures as prescribed by Central Government. In this regard, the draft rules lay down for compulsory Privacy Policy by body corporates and also provide for restriction on disclosure of information to third party, which cannot be made except with prior permission of the information providers.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India asked bourses on Wednesday to preserve original records related to an investigation till the trial is over instead of the current practice of keeping the papers only for five years. “. the respective original is to be maintained till the trial or investigation proceedings have concluded,” market regulator Sebi said in a circular to all stock exchanges.

Further, as per regulation 18 of SEBI (Stock Brokers & Sub-brokers) Regulations, 1992 (hereinafter referred to as Stock Broker Regulations), every stock broker shall preserve the specified books of account and other records for a minimum period of five years. In case such documents are maintained in electronic form, provisions of Information Technology Act, 2000 in this regard shall be complied with.

With proliferation of information technology enabled services such as e-governance, e-commerce and e-transactions; data security, data privacy and implementation of security practices and procedures relating to these applications of electronic communications have assumed greater importance and they required harmonization with the provisions of the Information Technology Act. Further, protection of Critical Information Infrastructure is pivotal to national security, economy, public health and safety, thus it had become necessary to declare such infrastructure as protected system, so as to restrict unauthorised access. Further, a rapid increase in the use of computer and Internet has given rise to new forms of crimes like, sending offensive emails and multimedia messages, child pornography, cyber terrorism, publishing sexually explicit materials in electronic form, video voyeurism, breach of confidentiality and leakage of data by intermediary, e-commerce frauds like cheating by personation – commonly known as phishing, identity theft, frauds on online auction sites, etc. So, penal provisions were required to be included in the Information Technology Act, 2000. Also, the Act needed to be technology-neutral to provide for alternative technology of electronic signature for bringing harmonization with Model Law on Electronic Signatures adopted by United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

Notification No. 70/2009, dated 22-9-2009 In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1B) of section 139 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (43 of 1961), the Central Board of Direct Taxes hereby makes the following amendment in the notification of the Government of India, in the Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue), vide S.O. 1281(E) [...]

CS. Monika Bhardwaj, B.Com (Hons.), ACS, LL.B (I), Gurgaon This article aims to highlight that communications done through electronic mode are now recognized by Indian Law and hold true as an ‘evidence’ as well as ‘contractual liability’. Internet and electronic communications has now become an integral part of our day to day life, from SMS [...]

Tax evasion in Mumbai may now become more difficult as taxpayers will have to deal with a cyber-savvy income-tax department. The IT department has recently adopted a technology to track down fraudulent electronic transactions even after they are deleted from computers. The department has a Cyber Forensic Lab in Mumbai that consists of advanced technological [...]

In a recent case, the Madras High Court concluded that P&L account and balance-sheet are not books of account as contemplated under the I-T Act. Computation of business income under the income-tax law has to be made on the basis of `books of account’. This law has been in operation since 1992, but surprisingly there was no definition of the term till 2001. Finance Act, 2001 introduced the definition through Section 2(12A). The definition, which took effect from June 1, 2001, reads thus: