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Information Technology Act, 2000

The IT Act gave electronic records legal standing, created India's computer offences and set up CERT-In and the Examiner of Electronic Evidence. Most cybercrime cases an examiner touches are charged under it alongside the general criminal law.

ActParliament of India2000In force, amendedReviewed 2 November 2026
Information Technology Act, 2000, DFRTI

The Information Technology Act, 2000 is Act 21 of 2000. It received assent on 9 June 2000 and came into force on 17 October 2000. Its first purpose was to give legal recognition to electronic records and digital signatures so that electronic commerce and e-governance could work. It also created a short list of computer offences and amended the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and other statutes to accommodate electronic evidence.

The Act as examiners know it today is largely the product of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, Act 10 of 2009, whose provisions took effect on 27 October 2009. That amendment inserted the offences in sections 66A to 66F and 67A to 67C, the interception, blocking and traffic monitoring powers in sections 69, 69A and 69B, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team in section 70B, the intermediary provisions in section 79 and the Examiner of Electronic Evidence in section 79A.

Two later changes matter. The Supreme Court struck down section 66A in 2015. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 will, when section 44(2) of that Act commences eighteen months after 14 November 2025, omit section 43A, add a reference to itself in the proviso to section 81 and omit clause (ob) of section 87(2). Until then section 43A remains the provision on compensation for failure to protect sensitive personal data.

The Offences an Examiner Meets

Section numbers from the Act as amended. Punishments are omitted here because they change with amendment; read the section before quoting one.

  • Section 43 and Section 66

    Section 43 lists acts done without permission of the owner: accessing a computer, downloading or copying data, introducing a contaminant, damaging, disrupting, denying access, charging services to another's account, tampering and stealing or destroying source code. Done dishonestly or fraudulently, the same acts are the offence under section 66.

  • Section 65

    Tampering with computer source documents: concealing, destroying or altering source code that the law requires to be kept.

  • Sections 66B to 66F

    Dishonestly receiving a stolen computer resource or communication device (66B), identity theft (66C), cheating by personation using a computer resource (66D), violation of privacy by capturing or publishing images of a private area (66E) and cyber terrorism (66F).

  • Sections 67, 67A and 67B

    Publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form, material containing a sexually explicit act and material depicting children in a sexually explicit act. Section 67C requires intermediaries to preserve and retain information as prescribed.

  • Sections 72 and 72A

    Breach of confidentiality by a person who gained access to records under the Act and disclosure of personal information in breach of a lawful contract by a service provider or intermediary.

  • Section 85

    Offences by companies: the company and every person in charge of and responsible for the conduct of its business at the time are liable, unless they show due diligence. This is why corporate investigations care about who knew what.

Terms and Institutions

B
Body Corporate
Any company, and includes a firm, sole proprietorship or other association of individuals engaged in commercial or professional activities. The term comes from section 43A and is used by the CERT-In directions to describe who must report incidents.
C
Computer Resource
A computer, computer system, computer network, data, computer database or software. The term is used across the offences, the CERT-In directions and the DPDP Rules.
E
Electronic Record
Data, record or data generated, image or sound stored, received or sent in electronic form, microfilm or computer generated microfiche. Section 4 gives such records the same standing as paper where a law requires writing.
I
Indian Computer Emergency Response Team
The national agency under section 70B, appointed by notification in 2009. Its functions in section 70B(4) are collecting and disseminating information on cyber incidents, forecasts and alerts, emergency measures, coordinating response and issuing guidelines. Under section 70B(6) it may call for information and give directions to service providers, intermediaries, data centres, body corporates and any other person, and section 70B(7) makes non-compliance punishable with imprisonment up to one year or a fine up to one lakh rupees or both.
Intermediary
Any person who on behalf of another receives, stores or transmits an electronic record or provides a service in respect of it, including telecom and internet providers, web hosts, search engines, online marketplaces and cyber cafes. Section 79 exempts an intermediary from liability for third-party content if it only provides access, does not initiate or modify the transmission and observes due diligence and the prescribed guidelines, and the exemption is lost if it conspires in the unlawful act or fails to remove material expeditiously after actual knowledge or notice from the Government.
P
Protected System
A computer resource the Government declares under section 70 because its incapacitation would affect critical information infrastructure. Section 70A names a national nodal agency for critical infrastructure protection.

Section 79A and the Examiner of Electronic Evidence

Section 79A lets the Central Government specify, by notification in the Official Gazette, any department, body or agency of the Central or a State Government as an Examiner of Electronic Evidence for the purpose of providing expert opinion on electronic form evidence before any court or other authority. The Explanation makes clear that electronic form evidence includes computer evidence, digital audio, digital video, cell phones and digital fax machines.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notifies laboratories under this section with a defined scope. A recent example is notification S.O. 3808(E) of 9 July 2026, which named the Cyber Forensic Division of the State Forensic Science Laboratory at Jaipur as an Examiner of Electronic Evidence for computer media forensics excluding floppy disks and for mobile device forensics. The scope is specific; a laboratory notified for computer media is not thereby notified for mobile devices or video.

Two things follow for examiners and students. First, section 79A notification is given to government laboratories, not to individuals and not to private laboratories, so a private examiner's opinion comes before a court as expert opinion under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 rather than under section 79A. Second, a notification is not a certificate of competence for every examiner in the building. The weight a court gives an opinion still turns on the method, the documentation and the examiner's own qualifications.

How It Touches Investigations and a Laboratory

The Act contains its own investigative provisions that sit alongside the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. Section 80 lets a police officer not below the rank of Inspector, or an authorised Government officer, enter any public place and search and arrest without warrant a person reasonably suspected of an offence under the Act. Section 76 makes any computer, system or storage media in respect of which the Act has been contravened liable to confiscation, with protection for an owner who is not responsible. Section 69 allows interception, monitoring and decryption directions on recorded reasons, and section 69B allows traffic data monitoring for cyber security, each under its own rules.

For a laboratory the practical links are three. Charges under sections 43, 66 and the sections that follow are what the examination has to support, so the examiner needs to know what each section requires to be shown: access without permission, dishonest intent, a contaminant, a particular kind of image. Section 67C and the CERT-In directions decide what logs an intermediary or body corporate will have kept, which decides what network evidence exists to collect. And section 79A decides whether a given government laboratory's report is received as the opinion of a notified examiner.

  • Read the charged section before planning the examination and record which facts it requires
  • Ask what section 67C and CERT-In retention means for the logs available
  • Check a government laboratory's section 79A scope before relying on its notified status
  • Keep section 72 in mind: access gained under the Act carries its own confidentiality duty

What the Act Does Not Do, and Common Misunderstandings

  • It does not make electronic records admissible on its own. Admissibility is governed by sections 61 to 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which replaced the provisions the IT Act had inserted into the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
  • Section 79A does not certify private examiners or training institutes. No course, including ours, can make a person a notified Examiner of Electronic Evidence.
  • Section 43A still exists today. It will be omitted only when section 44(2) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 commences, and the IT (Reasonable security practices) rules made under section 43A should be read with that in mind.
  • Section 66A should not be charged. The Supreme Court struck it down in 2015, though it still appears in printed copies of the Act.
  • Section 81 gives the Act overriding effect over inconsistent laws, with a proviso for the Copyright Act, 1957 and the Patents Act, 1970 and, once amended, the DPDP Act. It does not make the IT Act the only law on a computer crime; the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 offences are charged alongside it.

Common Questions

Which version of the Act should I read?

The Act as amended by the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 and later Acts, with section 66A treated as struck down and section 43A still present until the DPDP amendment commences. India Code publishes the consolidated text; it was unreachable while this page was written, which is why the Gazette copies are cited below.

Can a private laboratory give evidence under the IT Act?

A private laboratory is not notified under section 79A, so its examiner testifies as an expert whose opinion is relevant under section 39 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 and whose electronic records are proved under section 63 of that Adhiniyam with the certificate in its Schedule. Being outside section 79A affects the label, not the admissibility.

Does CERT-In investigate crime?

No. Section 70B gives CERT-In an incident response and coordination role. Criminal investigation stays with the police under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, though the information CERT-In collects under its directions may become evidence.

Official sources

This page is educational material, not legal advice. Laws and standards change, commence on different dates and are interpreted differently across jurisdictions. Always read the official text linked on this page and take advice from a qualified professional for a real matter.

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