What this reference covers
The pages describe the Information Technology Act 2000, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and the parts of the criminal law and the law of evidence that apply to electronic conduct. They also report official statistics on cyber crime and summarise decisions of the Supreme Court of India. They do not cover every statute that touches online activity, and they do not describe the practice of any particular court or police force.
Not legal advice
A person with a legal problem, such as a prosecution, a claim for compensation, a data protection obligation or a dispute over an electronic contract, should consult a qualified advocate. The same provision can lead to different results on different facts, and a summary cannot carry every qualification that the text of the law or a judgment contains.
Sources and dates
The statements about the law are taken from the text of the statutes and judgments themselves. Figures come from replies of the Ministry of Home Affairs to Parliament, published by the Press Information Bureau, which use the National Crime Records Bureau report Crime in India. Each page gives the date to which a figure or a provision relates, because the law has changed several times since 2000 and some of the changes are recent. A reader who relies on a page for a decision should check the current text.
Links to other sites
Some pages link to other websites. A link is a pointer and not a statement about the content of the other site, which is outside the control of this reference and may change. Links to other sites open in a new tab.