Cyber Laws and Social Mores: Challenges of an Internet Age

While IT Act of 2000 attempts to address myriad issues revolving around cyber security, cyber offences and also seeks to establish a regime oriented around management of cyber transactions of commercial nature, several discordant notes have been struck in the recent past dwelling essentially on social mores. What are the prevailing standards of legal and socially acceptable conduct of individuals and organizations on cyberspace? What is the existing penal scheme in India for transgressions on cyberspace and are these enough to serve the ends of law? What are the challenges of governance in an internet driven economy and are the two concepts of cyber laws and social mores divorced from each other or are they related to each other in an inseparable way? These are some of the posers which the authors shall attempt to respond to in this paper. The idea is to identify the operation of cyber laws within the constitutional scheme and spot the grey areas in the ensuing dialogue between cyber law regime and prevailing social mores and ideals. The effort shall inevitably entail a careful examination of leading judgments, legislations and policy papers. The focus shall be to glean out problem areas and to search a pathway towards a more democratic future.