Non – Disclosure agreements, Are they enforceable in India?

Non-disclosure agreements (NDA) which are also known as confidential disclosure agreements or confidentiality agreements or contracts of secrecy, are those contracts which get signed between two companies, people or entities under which one party does not have to reveal the confidential information of the other party within a specific period of time and if the party does so then the other party can sue him for the damages suffered because of the breach of confidentiality. The NDA’S are divided into two categories which are Unilateral NDA and Bilateral NDA. The Unilateral NDA comes in when only one party is disclosing some confidential information to the other. Whereas the Bilateral NDA comes in when parties on both sides are releasing private information to each other for performing contract.

A non disclosure agreement highly deals with patent laws of an entity. If the breach of the agreement takes place then there will be no loss of the patent rights. For saving and managing their contract, parties to the agreement include various clauses such as risk management, security management, personnel security, physical security and communication security for managing the confidentiality of the agreement.

The non-disclosure agreement generally comes to the profile of job employee when he/she sign an agreement with his company for maintaining the confidentiality. A major difference that can be claimed between a basic agreement and a non-disclosure agreement is that, a basic agreement can be simply done on a paper by the concerned parties but for adding privacy and restrictions on releasing of the agreement, the same can be done on a stamp paper with the registration of the contract under the registrar. This maintains the promise done by one party to another and also creates the fear in the mind of the parties that if they breach the contract, they have to compensate to the other.

In India a Non- Disclosure Agreement should be stamped and registered to become a valid enforceable document. Stamping is a necessary procedural formality, without which your document will not under regular circumstances be accepted in Court. The rate for stamp duty on a non-disclosure agreement will vary from state to state, but it should generally range from Rs. 20 to Rs. 100. A non-disclosure agreement can be registered as per the Registration Act, 1908 by approaching the Office of the Sub-Registrar. The charges for the same and detailed rules for registration vary from state to state. Registration helps a long way in proving the veracity of the contents of a particular document.

In India a Non- Disclosure Agreement should be stamped and registered to become a valid enforceable document. Stamping is a necessary procedural formality, without which your document will not under regular circumstances be accepted in Court. The rate for stamp duty on a non-disclosure agreement will vary from state to state, but it should generally range from Rs. 20 to Rs. 100. A non-disclosure agreement can be registered as per the Registration Act, 1908 by approaching the Office of the Sub-Registrar. The charges for the same and detailed rules for registration vary from state to state. Registration helps a long way in proving the veracity of the contents of a particular document.