Towards Digital Inclusion

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MEITY’) recently amended the First Schedule to the Information Technology Act, 2000 (‘IT Act’) via a notification on September 26, 2022 (‘Amendment’). Consequent to this Amendment, contracts relating to sale, conveyance of, or interest in immovable property, Power of Attorney (‘PoA’), demand promissory notes and certain bills of exchange have been included under the IT Act, i.e., such documents are allowed to be digitally / electronically signed as per the IT Act.

This is a welcome step as it reduces the cumbersome requirement of having to print and manually sign a document. The physical presence of the parties may no longer be required or, it can be easy for parties to store signed contracts. This also seeks to maintain parity with the digital advances in the world.

From a practical scenario however, the authenticity of an electronic signature / DSC has to be ascertained. Further, in the case of conveyance deeds, many states continue to adopt the conventional methods even for procurement of stamp papers; given this it is difficult to imagine how they could possibly migrate to a digital signature era. Possibly the respective Governments can issue standard operating procedures to bring this in line with the legal advancements.

Guest Author: Vincy Gandhi, graduate, LL.B, S.N.D.T College