Mr Kapil Sibal who was the minister for IT in the UPA 2 Government is seeking election from Delhi Chandi Chowk which is going to polls on 10th of April 2014. Though this site is not a political site and I keep my political opinions to a different forum, I would like to bring to the notice of all that Mr Kapil Sibal was singularly responsible for all the cyber crime victims of India to be denied justice for last two years and voters need to remember this disservice while voting for him.
It was way back in June 2011 that Justice Rajesh Tandon retired as the chair person of Cyber Appellate Tribunal, Delhi which is the apex appeal court supervising the decisions of the Adjudicating officers of all States and Union territories who form the trial court system for civil disputes for all Cyber Crimes and offences under Information Technology Act. (ITA 2000/8).
Though it was known that the position of Chair person would become vacant, Mr Kapil Sibal did not take any action to fill up the vacancy in time before the retirement.
Since then Mr Kapil Sibal tried to recommend one particular person for the post and when the Chief Justice of India asked for alternate recommendations, refused to send alternate recommendations. He even kept one Jutice Mr S.K.Krishnan wait for 9 months in the Tribunal without giving him the necessary authority to take up cases. Even when Courts issued notices on the delay, Mr Kapil Sibal gave a political reply that the appointment will be completed expeditiously but never took any action to fill the vacancy. All this was done so that the person whom he favoured alone becomes the Chair Person. He was arrogant and adamant to keep the Court shut since the Chief Justice did not agree with him.
As a result, several judgements which were on appeal in this court including the appeal of ICICI Bank Vs S.Umashankar, Gunashekar Vs PNB, Vijaykumar Vs PNB, Rajedra Yadav Vs ICICI Bank, Gujarat Petrosynthese Vs Axis Bank were all held up in various stages of decision.
To compound the problem, the adjudicator of Karnataka Mr M.N.Vidyashankar gave a bizarre judgement annulling the entire Information Technology Act to benefit Axis Bank and his decision remained effective because the Cyber Appellate Tribunal was not functioning. Even Karnataka High Court failed in recognizing the impact of this biased decision of Mr Vidyashankar virtually shutting all legal remedies of Cyber Justice to cyber crime victims in Karantaka. The Government of Karnataka failed to take any remedial action.
The details of all these developments have been documented in this site in many of the earlier posts.
Thus Mr Kapil Sibal trying to post one favoured individual as the Chair person of Cyber Appellate Tribunal virtually shut off the Cyber Justice system in India. Any number of appeals to people lime Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, Chief Justice of India etc failed to see any action and Cyber Crime victims of India have remained cursing the system. By the time the next Government takes charge and remedies the situation, many of the victims would have grown old and lost interest in fighting for justice.
I sincerely wish that the voters of Chandni Chowk Delhi make Mr Kapil Sibal pay for their misery of the cyber crime victims by voting against him.
Naavi
