Mitra was speaking on the Cyber Laws and the IT Bill here on Thursday at an e-Revolution Conference organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and the Young Leaders Forum of ICC. He said drafting of the IT Bill was conceived in 1997 which, in terms of intellectual property concepts, means that it is at the 1997 level, not the 2000 level. "Since 1997, the sector has witnessed a lot of changes and will continue to change. Therefore, the IT Bill will have its limitations," Mitra said. For example, all the areas of information flow, such as all elements of telecom, media and technology, are converging.

But the IT Bill does not talk of convergence, he pointed out.However, he made it clear that the proposed bill is a distinct advancement in a situation where there were no laws at all. "Law should be made in time, otherwise we will miss the bus," Mitra said. "Changes can always be incorporated as required." "We require a law to build trust. For example, anything not in print is not considered a document under current law. Since this cannot apply to the IT world, digital documents have to be given legal sanctity," Mitra said. Mitra cited a mid-fifties verdict by Justice MC Chagla of the Supreme Court supporting this.