IT Act and RTI Act

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IT Act and RTI Act

The Information Technology Act 2000 (ITA-2000)(IT ACT) is an Act of the Indian Parliament (No 21 of 2000) notified on October 17, 2000.

Specifics of the Act
Information technology Act 2000 consisted of 94 sections segregated into 13 chapters. Four schedules form part of the Act.

In the 2008 version of the Act, there are 124 sections (excluding 5 sections that have been omitted from the earlier version) and 14 chapters. Schedule I and II have been replaced. Schedules III and IV are deleted.

Essence of the Act
Information Technology Act 2000 addressed the following issues:

• Legal Recognition of Electronic Documents
• Legal Recognition of Digital Signatures
• Offenses and Contraventions
• Justice Dispensation Systems for Cybercrimes

ITAA 2008 (Information Technology Amendment Act 2008) as the new version of Information Technology Act 2000 is often referred has provided additional focus on Information Security. It has added several new sections on offences including Cyber Terrorism and Data Protection.

More information can be obtained at –
http://deity.gov.in/content/information-technology-act

Notification Of IT Act 2008
The Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008 (IT Act 2008) has been passed on 23rd December 2008 and received the assent of President of India on 5th February, 2009. The IT Act 2008 has been notified on Oct 27 2009

Act 2008 can be downloaded at –
http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/downloads/itact2000/it_amendment_act2008.pdf

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RTI Act

The Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI) is an Act of the Parliament of India “to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens.” The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir has its own act called Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen may request information from a “public authority” (a body of Government or “instrumentality of State”) which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to pro-actively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally. This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. Information disclosure in India was hitherto restricted by the Official Secrets Act 1923 and various other special laws, which the new RTI Act now relaxes. Recently, an upper word limit of 500 words has been fixed for the application to be made under RTI. Also a new format for filing an appeal to CVC has been drawn up.

More information can be downloaded at –

http://rti.gov.in/rtiact.htm

 

Further, the RTI website for each state is given in the map below