First Adjudication Application under ITA 2000
Filed in Chennai
Chennai
had already marked its name in the history of Information Technology Act
2000 (ITA 2000) by being the first to get a conviction of a person in the
Court of Law under a section of ITA 2000. Now Chennai again made a mark in
ITA 2000 enforcement being the first of the southern states to register an
application for adjudication under ITA 2000. Mr C Umasankar, an NRI
customer of ICICI bank became the trend setter by filing a complaint in
connection with an alleged contravention of Section 43 of the ITA 2000 by
ICICI Bank and one of its customers.
The adjudication procedure for dispute settlement is one
of the laudable citizen friendly features of the Information Technology Act
2000 because it tries to put a time limit of 4 months under which the
adjudicator is expected to give his award. The procedure is also relatively
uncomplicated with a simple application form to be filed along with the
required fee.
The adjudication process as per Section 46 of ITA 2000
can be invoked for any contravention under Chapter IX of the Act. This
includes contraventions under Section 43 such as Unauthorized
“Access”,’Downloading”, “Causing Damage or Disruption” “ Causing Denial Of
Access”, “Introducing Virus”, “Using a resource and charging it to another
person” or ”Assisting in contravention”.
Simultaneously, under Section 85, the process gets
extended to Companies and its executives if there is lack of due
diligence.
ITA 2000 gives so much importance to this process that
the Adjudicator has been given sole jurisdiction in all instances of
contravention and no court can even grant an injunction for the
proceedings.
Presently the IT Secretaries of every State or Union
Territory in India have been designated as Adjudicators for the respective
states.
Despite such overwhelming advantages, it is strange that
it has taken 8 years since ITA 2000 became effective for the first
adjudication application to be filed anywhere in South India. The only
other known application was in Delhi.
The lack of complaints does not indicate lack of
eligible incidents since during this time several hundred complaints have
been filed under ITA 2000 on criminal offences. Most Criminal offences such
as hacking also results in contravention of ITA 2000 and hence there must
have been several opportunities for adjudication application in states such
as Karnataka where hundreds of Cyber Crime complaints have been filed.
One of the reasons for the non utilization of the
adjudication process could be lack of awareness of the provisions by the
lawyers so that they can advise their clients appropriately.
It is also necessary for the State Governments to
provide suitable training to the staff at the IT Secretary’s office so that
it can effectively double up as the “Adjudicator’s Office”. There is
perhaps a need for the Governments to think of providing a separate
secretarial set up to the IT Secretary to support his duties as an
Adjudicator.
While effective action regarding “Creation of
Awareness”, “Building of support infrastructure in the IT Secretary’s
office” etc is required in all States, the undersigned specially urges the
new Karnataka Government to take necessary initiatives to see that the
Silicon City does not continue to lag behind the neighboring states when it
comes to Cyber Law Enforcement.
Naavi
June 26, 2008
Related Article in Deccan Chronicle
An Earlier Note from Naavi.org:
Phishing is Hacking
The power of Indian Cyber Law is manifest in the
definition of the Section 66 offence which covers a wide range of Computer
and Internet Crimes. The recent concern of the Netizens is the "Phishing
Attacks". Most of the time the attack ends up with a fraudulent withdrawal
of money froma Bank account. In view of the end result we often see only
the "Fraud Dimension" of the Phishing attack.These attacks consist of the
following components.
1.Forging of e-mail headers
2.Spamming under the false name
3.Creation of pseudo websites/web page which appear
similar to the better known Bank site
4. Using the stolen password for entering the real
Bank system to withdraw money.
Under Section 66 of ITA 2000, these could be recognized
as an offence not withstanding the offences that may be recognized under
IPC. Victims would rather prefer action under ITA 2000 since it also
simplifies the recovery of damages through adjudication proceedings...
Naavi
