Overview of Cyber Law in India

Cyber crime on the rise

  • As per the cyber crime data maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a total of 217, 288, 420 and 966 Cyber Crime cases were registered under the Information Technology Act, 2000 during 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively. Also, a total of 328, 176, 276 and 356 cases were registered under Cyber Crime related Sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) during 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively. A total of 154, 178, 288 and 799 persons were arrested under Information Technology Act 2000 during 2007-2010. A total number of 429, 195, 263 and 294 persons were arrested under Cyber Crime related Sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) during 2007-2010.

  • As per 2011 NCRB figures, there were 1,791 cases registered under the IT Act during the year 2011 as compared to 966 cases during the previous year (2010) thereby reporting an increase of 85.4% in 2011 over 2010.

  • Of this, 19.5% cases (349 out of 1,791 cases) were reported from Andhra Pradesh followed by Maharashtra (306), Kerala (227), Karnataka (151) and Rajasthan (122). And 46.1% (826 cases) of the total 1,791 cases registered under IT Act, 2000 were related to loss/damage to computer resource/utility reported under hacking with computer systems.

  • According to NCRB, the police have recorded less than 5,000—only 4,829 cases and made fewer arrests (3,187) between 2007 and 2011, under both the Information Technology (IT) Act as well as the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

  • And convictions remain in single digits, according to lawyers. Only 487 persons were arrested for committing such offences during the year 2011. There were 496 cases of obscene publications/transmission in electronic form during the year 2011 wherein 443 persons were arrested.

  • Out of total 157 cases relating to hacking under Sec. 66(2), most of the cases (23 cases) were reported from Karnataka followed by Kerala (22 ) and Andhra Pradesh (20 cases). And 20.4% of the 1184 persons arrested
    in cases relating to IT Act, 2000 were from Andhra Pradesh (242) followed by Maharashtra (226).

  • The age-wise profile of persons arrested in cyber crime cases under the IT Act, 2000 showed that 58.6% of the offenders were in the age group 18–30 years (695 out of 1184) and 31.7% of the offenders were in the age
    group 30-45 years (376 out of 1184). Madhya Pradesh (10), Maharashtra (4), Kerala (3) and Delhi (2) reported offenders whose age was below 18 years.

  • Meanwhile, a total of 422 cases were registered under the Indian Penal Code or IPC Sections during the year 2011 as compared to 356 such cases during 2010 thereby reporting an increase of 18.5%. Maharashtra reported maximum number of such cases (87 out of 422 cases i.e. 20.6%) followed by Chhattisgarh 18.0% (76 cases) and Delhi 11.6% (49 Cases).

  • Majority of the crimes out of total 422 cases registered under IPC fall under 2 categories--forgery (259) and Criminal Breach of Trust or fraud (118). Although such offences fall under the traditional IPC crimes, these cases had the cyber overtones wherein computer, Internet or its enabled services were present in the crime and hence they were categorised as Cyber Crimes under IPC.
  • Crime head-wise and age-wise profile of the offenders arrested under Cyber Crimes (IPC) for the year 2011 reveals that offenders involved in forgery cases were more in the age-group of 18-30 (46.5%) (129 out of 277). 50.4% of the persons arrested under Criminal Breach of Trust/Cyber Fraud offences were in the age group 30-45 years (65 out of 129).

  • Meanwhile 9 out of 88 mega cities did not report any case of cyber crime i.e., neither under the IT Act nor under IPC Sections during the year 2011.

  • And 53 mega cities have reported 858 cases under IT Act and 200 cases under various sections of IPC. There was an increase of 147.3% (from 347 cases in 2009 to 858 cases in 2011) in cases under IT Act as compared to previous year (2010), and an increase of 33.3% (from 150 cases in 2010 to 200 cases in 2011) of cases registered under various sections of IPC.

  • Bangalore (117), Vishakhapatnam (107), Pune (83), Jaipur (76), Hyderabad (67) and Delhi (City) (50) have reported high incidence of cases (500 out of 858 cases) registered under IT Act, accounting for more than half of the cases (58.3%) reported under the IT Act. Delhi City has reported the highest incidence (49 out of 200) of cases reported under IPC sections accounting for 24.5% followed by Mumbai (25 or 12.5%).

    A major programme has been initiated on development of cyber forensics specifically cyber forensic tools, setting up of infrastructure for investigation and training of the users, particularly police and judicial officers in use of this tool to collect and analyze the digital evidence and present them in Court. Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) are involved in providing basic and advanced training of Law Enforcement Agencies, Forensic labs and judiciary on the procedures and methodology of collecting, analyzing and presenting digital evidence.

    Cyber forensic training lab has been set up at Training Academy of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to impart basic and advanced training in Cyber Forensics and Investigation of Cyber Crimes to Police Officers associated with CBI. In addition, Government has set up cyber forensic training and investigation labs in Kerala, Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur and Jammu & Kashmir.

    In collaboration with Data Security Council of India (DSCI), NASSCOM, Cyber Forensic Labs have been set up at Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Kolkata. DSCI has organized 112 training programmes on Cyber Crime Investigation and awareness and a total of 3680 Police officials, judiciary and Public prosecutors have been trained through these programmes.

    Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issues alerts, advisories and guidelines regarding cyber security threats and measures to be taken to prevent cyber incidents and enhance security of Information Technology systems.

More Topics

  1. Need for Cyber law
  2. Cyber crime on the rise
  3. Important terms related to cyber law
  4. Cyber law in India
  5. History of cyber law in India
  6. Information Technology Act, 2000
  7. Salient features of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008
  8. Rules notified under the Information Technology Act, 2000
  9. Overview of other laws amended by the IT Act, 2000 - India Panel Code 1860
  10. Indian Evidence Act, 1872
  11. National Policy on Information Technology 2012
  12. Applicability and Scheme of the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT, 2000
  13. Digital signature and Electronic signature
  14. Digital Signature under the IT Act, 2000
  15. Electronic Signature
  16. E-Governance
  17. Attribution, Acknowledgement and Dispatch of Electronic Records
  18. Certifying Authorities
  19. Root Certifying Authority of India (RCAI)
Indian Cyber Securiry



Research Papers


Case Study



Cyber Police


Newsletter