The Hindu Business Line : Amendments to IT Act in the offing

THE Ministry of Information & Technology has decided to amend some of the Sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000 by mid next year to help large MNCs to protect their database against any of their possible piracy.

Stating this at a seminar `Strategy for negotiating IT & BPO transactions in global perspectives', Mr Pavan Duggal said that the committee has almost finalised its report, and suggested to the Government that Section 2 of the IT Act be amended to ensure that the database of the foreign companies are protected.

Mr Duggal is one of the members of an Expert Committee set up by the Government to recommend measures to amend certain sections of IT Act.

The seminar was organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) and the Electronics & Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

"The amendment in this Section has become necessary in view of oft-repeated complaints of large MNCs abroad that their Indian counterparts pirate their data in a manner that accrue them commercial benefits during the course of their business transactions," Mr Duggal said.

The other two members of the committee are the eminent lawyers of the Supreme Court, Mr Sardul Shroff and Mr R. Srinivasan.

According to Mr Duggal, the three-member committee will be submitting its recommendations to the Government in the next few months so that the IT Ministry refers the matter to the Law & Justice Ministry for early amendment of certain Sections of the IT Act.

"The Act which came into effect in the year 2000 did not foresee the present BPO boom and solutions were not provided in the Act to settle the ongoing BPO related disputes.

"That is why the Government had set up the committee to suggest measures for amending certain sections of the Act sometimes in October 2003," Mr Duggal said.