Published Paper Details:

The high rate of e-commerce growth in India has created the necessity of a broad legal framework to control online dealings, guard consumer rights as well as to hold online sites responsible. The paper reviews the changing regulatory framework of e-commerce in India; specifically, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act), and the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011. It examines the combined effect of these legislative tools in solving data privacy, intermediary liability, electronic contracts, consumer protection and platform responsibility. The DPDP Act which came into effect after the constitutional right to privacy was identified in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.). v. Union of India, implements an organized system of protection of digital personal information, where data fiduciaries and data principals are identified, along with the introduction of consent-based processing and severe consequences of failure to do so. The IT Act, 2000 gives a legal acknowledgement to the electronic records and digital signatures, authorizing a contract through the Internet, and permitting digital business. The Intermediary Guidelines Rules, 2011 read together with Section 79 of the IT Act, offer conditional safe harbor protection to the intermediaries on the condition of due diligence. The paper also analyzes some of the major judicial precedents such as Shreya Singhal v. SAS, Christian Louboutin Union of India v. Nakul Bajaj, and Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd. v. Amway India Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., which have provided the understanding of the intermediary immunity and the notion of real knowledge. The research arrives at a conclusion that the legal framework of India aims at achieving a balance between innovation, consumer protection, and constitutional freedoms and gradually enhancing responsibility in the digital marketplace.