Electronic Documents May Get Legal Status

The draft Bill for a cyber law, which has been sent to the law ministry for clearance, seeks to give legal recognition to electronic records by laying down that an information will not be denied legal validity solely on the ground that it is in the form of an electronic record.

The administrative standing committee, which includes all the secretaries related to the area, recently cleared the draft Bill with a few drafting changes and no conceptual changes.

"Once the Bill is finalised, I would like to push it through in the winter session of Parliament. The law will hopefully be in place by early next year," says Ravindra Gupta, secretary to the department of electronics, which has drafted the Bill.

Under the proposed law, a duplicate of a computer data file or programme file will be admissible in evidence as the original itself unless a genuine question is raised with regard to the authenticity of the original or if the circumstances are such that it would be unfair to admit the duplicate in lieu of the original.

A duplicate of a computer data file or programme file will mean a file produced by the same impression as the original, or from the same matrix, or by mechanical or electronic recording, in the normal way such a duplicate is produced on a computer, or by other equivalent techniques that accurately reproduce the original.

If data is stored in a computer or similar device, any printout or other output readable by sight, shown to reflect the data accurately, will be an original subject to satisfying the legal requirements.

Under the cyber law, notwithstanding the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, any relevant computer output will be admissible as evidence of any fact stated therein if it is shown:

* That there is no ground for believing that the output is inaccurate because of improper use of the computer; or

* That the computer was operating properly, and if at all not operating properly, it was not such as to affect the production of the output or the accuracy of its contents;

Regarding the acceptance of electronic filing and issue of documents, the Bill says any department, ministry or corporation of the Union or state government will accept the filing of documents, or the creation or retention of documents in the form of electronic records; issue such permit, licence or approval in the form of electronic records; or make payments in electronic form.

It will be up to the agency to prescribe the manner and format in which electronic records can be filed, created, retained or issued.

The Bill defines computer crime as intentional access without permission, and altering any data, computer data base or computer system to devise or execute any scheme to defraud or obtain money, property, or data.

Making copies without permission or making use of any data or computer data base from a computer system network is also classified as computer crime.

The Bill prescribes fines from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5 lakh and/or imprisonment from 1-3 years. The punishment is stringent in cases of interruption or impairment of governmental operation, public transport, public utility service or supply of water or gas.

Whoever knowingly or intentionally conceals, destroys, or alters or intentionally or knowingly causes another to conceal, destroy, or alter any computer source document used for a computer, computer programme, computer system, or computer network, when the computer source document is required to be kept by law, shall be guilty of an offence of computer crime. Fines of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh and/or imprisonment of up to six months have been prescribed for tampering with a computer source document that is required to be kept by law, with the intent to obstruct an official investigation by any state agency authorised by law to conduct any civil or criminal investigation.